K.J. spent the next half hour training them and giving all of them pointers on teleporting. Then he finally just looked at Belle and Nancy. “You got everything I know, how about teaching me how to fly like that.”
Belle looked at Nancy who just shrugged. “Same principle,” Belle said.
Nancy nodded. “Exactly. Which was what gave us the idea it was possible. We are not restricted by physical world limitations that much. So why should gravity restrict us.”
“So we just imagined ourselves floating,” Belle said, “and we were, just as with the teleporting and the going between instants of time.”
K.J. nodded and a moment later floated up off his chair, drifted around the room for a few moments and then came back to the table, never once moving his legs or touching the ground.
Tommy and Jewel did the same thing next, both smiling like they had been given the perfect gift.
K.J. nodded as Tommy and Jewel returned to their chairs. “I have another meeting tomorrow and I’ll report to the powers-that-be that you four are ready for action and can do all this now.”
“So any leads on the big problem with Christmas?” Tommy asked just an instant before Belle could. She was loving this new state of existence. She didn’t want it to end anytime soon, let alone have the entire world end as well. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how that could happen.
“Nothing,” K.J. said, his voice low and worried. “I’ll meet you back here for breakfast after my meeting.”
At that he vanished.
After a moment Belle looked at Nancy. “Ready for seconds?”
“I am famished,” Nancy said.
“Should we fly, walk, or teleport to the buffet?” Belle asked, laughing.
Both Jewel and Tommy just shook their heads as Nancy said, “Teleport.”
And an instant later they were standing in front of some of best-smelling prime rib Belle could imagine.
TWENTY-FIVE
The next morning, Jewel and Tommy had jumped from their home to the buffet and were both loading up plates when K.J. arrived and started doing the same. A moment later Belle and Nancy appeared, both with wet hair. Jewel was amazed at how both looked so radiant and happy.
While Jewel and Tommy wore jeans and cotton shirts with light jackets, Belle and Nancy both had on white shorts that showed off their long legs and trim figures. They both wore fluffy silk blouses and matching-colored tennis shoes. Belle’s blouse was blue, Nancy’s a light green. They had clearly done some shopping after leaving the restaurant last night.
Jewel had never seen such enjoyment in two people before. Not a word about being killed a few days before, not a sour word about the mission. They just always seemed to be smiling and laughing and figuring out new stuff, which was wonderful.
In college and medical school, she had never really been around people like them before. All her friends and other students were always taking everything in life very seriously. Being around Belle and Nancy was like a wonderful breath of fresh air and they made her smile even more.
K.J. today was dressed in a robin’s-egg-blue three-piece silk suit with a bright red tie and bright red sneakers. The bright red handkerchief sticking out of his breast pocket seemed to pull it all together somehow.
Belle complimented him on his look as she got a waffle and he bowed and smiled in appreciation.
Jewel took her standard scrambled eggs, a slice of ham, and toast with strawberry jelly, then jumped to a table near the back and off to one side that she doubted anyone would sit at. The buffet wasn’t that busy this morning even though it was a Saturday. There were only about forty people scattered around the huge space.
After everyone had food and were eating, Tommy asked K.J. if there was any progress.
“Nothing,” K.J. said. “But we do have some sort of timeline.”
“The timeline done by the people who can look out ahead in time some?” Jewel asked.
K.J. nodded. “The world will come to an end on the first day of December if we don’t stop this.”
“What day is it now?” Belle asked as Jewel tried to remember the date.
“November 15th,” K.J. said. “We have fifteen days.”
Jewel sort of stared at her eggs and no one said a word. Only fifteen days and not even the most powerful of powerful had a clue what was going to happen. What could she do to help? She felt helpless.
As she finally forced herself to take another bite of eggs, all sounds in the restaurant cut off and all the live people froze.
Laverne, Lady Luck herself, appeared near K.J. and he stood so quickly he almost went over backwards.
Laverne was again wearing a gray silk business suit that fit her perfectly and her hair was pulled back giving her face a stern appearance.
Jewel stood almost as fast, as did Tommy and the two women.
“Sorry to bother your breakfast,” Laverne said, “but I need you five to come with me to listen to a meeting. Nothing may come of it, but meetings at this point with Poker Boy and his team tend to bring up questions that lead to answers.”
“Will they be able to see us?” Tommy asked.
“I doubt it,” Laverne said. “Just listen and give me any ideas you might have.”
A moment later all six of them were standing in a large room with what looked to be a fifties diner booth filling the middle of the room. The floor was a black and white checkered tile and the seats of the booth were bright red vinyl.
All four walls of the room were floor to ceiling windows. The entire room appeared to be floating a thousand feet above the center of the Las Vegas strip. Jewel could see planes on approach to the airport directly even with the room.
To Jewel the view was stunning, but if not for the wood railing along the inside of the glass, she would have felt as if she would fall out of the room at any moment.
There was nothing else in the room but the booth and some chairs.
“Poker Boy’s office,” K.J. said as Laverne nodded to them and stepped toward the table, leaving them standing about three steps away to listen.
There were six people already at the table.
“Poker Boy is the one in the fedora-like hat and leather jacket,” K.J. said. “The woman with the long brown hair sitting beside him is his girlfriend, Patty Ledgerwood, aka Front Desk Girl.”
At that moment Patty turned and looked back at them, frowning slightly before turning back to face the table. Jewel wondered if Patty had somehow sensed them.
Poker Boy looked to be in his mid-thirties and had an expressionless face and a square jaw. Patty was just stunning in her beauty, almost a classic Greek look.
Everyone at the table seemed to be working on a number of huge milkshakes. Poker Boy and Patty were sharing a vanilla one.
“The man with the rolled-up sleeves on the other side of Poker Boy is called Screamer,” K.J. said. “And the woman next to him is Sherrie, one of Laverne’s daughters and Screamer’s wife. All four of them are superheroes. Poker Boy works for the gambling side of things. Patty works for the gods of hospitality, Sherrie works for the gods of food and beverage, and Screamer works for the gods of law enforcement.”
“Wow, there are a lot of gods,” Belle said, the same thing Jewel was thinking.
“You have no idea,” K.J. said. “The man in the tan button-down sweater across from Patty is Stan, the God of Poker and the elderly looking man beside him is Lamplighter Ben, a god in the knowledge and books area. He used to be the God of Lamplighters when that profession existed.”
Jewel watched as Lady Luck pulled up a chair to the end of the big booth and asked, “Any ideas at all?”
“We have The Bookkeeper running the numbers as fast as he can,” Poker Boy said. “So far nothing.”
Jewel had no idea who The Bookkeeper was and didn’t want to ask K.J. at the moment. She imagined he was another superhero or god of accounting or something.
“And nothing from any other angle either,” Screamer said.
“There doesn’t seem to b
e a motive here at all that we can find,” Patty said. “Nick has some enemies, sure, but even his known enemies are worried and trying to help on this one.”
Jewel glanced at Tommy who seemed to just be listening intently.
Beside him both Belle and Nancy were doing the same thing. K.J. was shifting from foot to foot nervously.
“I don’t think this is aimed at Nick,” Poker Boy said. He turned to Laverne. “What would be left after this world was destroyed if we hadn’t saved it that first time from being chewed up by the cross-dimensional insect things?”
Laverne shook her head. “Nothing, really. The gods that could would have escaped to other dimensions at the last moment to live in exile. The Earth of this dimension would have been a barren wasteland. Nothing at all to gain for anyone wanting that to happen.”
“So no one gains,” Stan said, shaking his head. “So we’re back to square one.”
“Not really,” Poker Boy said. “We know that no one would gain, and I am convinced that destroying the world has nothing to do with attacking Nick. So what we have left is an accident.”
“It’s not intentional?” Patty asked.
Poker Boy just nodded. “That’s what I would bet.”
“Great,” Screamer said, “someone is going to destroy the world by accident.”
Jewel watched as Poker Boy turned and directly faced Laverne. “When you said that all of Christmas will be erased from all memories and all of time, how is that possible?”
“Sort of the same way we can see this coming,” Laverne said. “All of life is connected in one fashion or another. There is a vast network of energy that connects us all in many different ways and on many different levels. Some of us see the connections and can use them, as all of you do in your own ways with your own powers.”
“So it is along these life connections that Christmas will be erased?” Patty asked.
Laverne nodded.
Beside Jewel, Nancy and Belle both laughed.
She glanced at them.
“Life is a giant computer,” Nancy said. “Who knew?”
“More like a giant internet among all life forms,” Belle said.
“And the life computer has a virus, or more than likely a worm,” Nancy said, shaking her head.
“A worm set to erase Christmas,” Belle said.
Laverne turned away from the table and looked at them. “A worm?”
All six live people at the table with Laverne looked stunned and surprised to have Laverne talk to someone they couldn’t see.
Jewel knew what a worm or computer virus was. Sort of. But she sure would never have thought of it.
Tommy was nodding slightly and K.J. just looked puzzled.
“We can explain it,” Belle said, smiling.
“I’m about 99% sure that’s what is going on,” Nancy said.
“Trust them on that,” Jewel said to Laverne. “I’ve seen them work on a computer and it’s magic in the best way.”
“Now you just need to figure out who can work on the big computer of life,” Belle said.
Laverne started to open her mouth, then shut it and just stared at them.
Jewel wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Section Four
CAN ANYONE SAVE CHRISTMAS?
TWENTY-SIX
Belle felt overjoyed to figure out what the problem was they were all facing. She had no idea how all of life could be hooked together, but it sort of made sense when she thought of it.
And it really made sense considering what they were learning since she and Nancy had died.
From everything people had been saying about the problem, wiping a memory from everyone, wiping out an entire history, sure felt like wiping a hard drive of a computer. Or corrupting data in a cloud storage.
And Nancy knew computers better than anyone alive or dead and she saw the same thing clearly. Something had gotten into life’s connections and was going to eat at the memory of Christmas, deleting it.
Belle had no idea how that was possible, but she also didn’t know how she could be here after being killed and how an invisible office could float above Las Vegas. So something that seemed impossible before might be very likely, considering everything.
Laverne turned back to the table of live superheroes and gods and said, “I invited some guests to this meeting. Have you ever heard of the Ghost of a Chance Agency?”
Only the older god named Ben nodded.
“Wow, we are super secret, aren’t we?” Jewel said to K.J. and he just shrugged.
“We recruit for the Ghost of a Chance Agency some very special people right after they die,” Laverne said. “There are less than one thousand agents in the entire world helping solve problems in a similar manner that you all do. Five of the best Ghost Agents are standing with us right now. And two of them have come up with an idea that might be the solution.”
“And we can’t see them because they are ghosts?” Poker Boy asked.
“I could sense them,” Patty said, nodding.
“That’s correct,” Laverne said. “They do the same job we all do, only just outside of the living world. But they exist and work in the living world.”
Laverne waved her hand and Belle couldn’t feel anything different, but suddenly all six at the table sort of sat back.
Laverne motioned that the five Ghost Agents should come a little closer. “This is Jewel, Tommy, K.J., Belle, and Nancy.”
Each of them raised their hand slightly as Laverne introduced them. Belle felt a little like she was in school being introduced for the first time.
Then Laverne looked at Belle and Nancy with her penetrating dark eyes. “Explain again what you just said to me.”
Belle shrugged. “If life, all life, at all levels, is hooked together in some fashion, that would mimic the connections in both a corporation and a computer or internet system.”
“Somehow, someone,” Nancy said, “either by accident, or with another purpose, infected the life connections with a virus or a worm that would travel along those connections and remove Christmas from all consciousness.”
“More than likely not realizing the consequences of the action,” Belle said.
All six at the table were nodding and clearly thinking. Belle was impressed. It was no wonder this team had saved the world four or five times already. Even having five ghosts appear in front of them didn’t faze them from the task at hand.
Poker Boy looked at Laverne. “Who would have access to this life computer in any fashion at all?”
“You all do with your powers,” Laverne said. “But in limited ways, which is why powers are limited.”
“So let’s start with a logical place first,” Poker Boy said. “Who hates Nick enough who has the capability to try to erase his name from the life connections?”
“Krampus,” Ben said. “The horned devil of Christmas.”
Laverne shook her head. “Kramp and Nick play chess three times per week now and Kramp helps Nick and the rest of the elves with the last minute preparations each year. They are best friends and have been for centuries now.”
Ben nodded.
“But didn’t Christmas sort of overshadow the Krampus Day celebrations in the past?” K.J. asked, surprising Belle. “I seemed to remember that from my history somewhere and some great Krampus parties a few years back.”
“They did,” Ben said, nodding. “But that was far, far before the modern Christmas traditions came about.”
Poker Boy glanced at K.J. and then back to Laverne. “Does Krampus have a son or daughter?”
“Flick,” Laverne said, nodding slowly, clearly thinking. “He’s a god in the entertainment and party world and through his father’s connections might have enough access to understand the larger scale of things.”
Laverne stood. “Thank you one and all. I’m going to go talk with Nick and Kramp and get their take on this, and then see if we can find Flick.”
“Don’t forget to turn us back inv
isible, please,” K.J. said.
She smiled. “I didn’t change your status. I just allowed them to see you is all.”
With that she returned the five of them to their table in the buffet, where the wonderful smell of eggs and bacon hit Belle and she realized she just hadn’t had much breakfast before all that started.
“Anyone have any idea who exactly Krampus is or was?” Jewel asked.
All five of them shook their heads.
“They were some great parties, though,” K.J. said as he sank into the same chair he had earlier, almost shaking.
Belle glanced around at the live people in the room. One good-looking woman with long silver hair was sitting at a table munching on a light breakfast and working on her laptop computer.
She pointed the woman out to Nancy, who nodded.
Belle watched as Nancy transported over to her, melded with her, and a minute later, after the woman’s fingers were done flying over the computer, emerged.
“I’ll explain who Krampus is after we all get more food,” Nancy said, appearing back at their table. “I have a hunch we’re going to need it very shortly.”
Belle could only agree to that and hand-in-hand, she and Nancy walked to the food area of the buffet.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Jewel was glad that Nancy let them get something more to eat before explaining Krampus. They were all almost finished eating when Nancy finally told them what she had found out about Krampus, how his holiday had been taken over by Christmas, mostly in Europe hundreds of years before.
“He looks like what many modern pictures of the devil would look like,” Nancy said, “with long horns and no red suit or pitchfork.”
“Wonderful,” K.J. said, shaking his head. “I wore a costume to a party that looked like that, only the horns were detachable sex toys.”
All four of them laughed and Jewel could feel the mood lifting again.
“Laverne says they are friends now,” Jewel said after Nancy explained about the good kids and bad kids. Good kids were rewarded by Santa, the bad kids were taken by the horned Krampus.
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