Rise of the Miser: Claus, #5

by Tony Bertauski

  He gestured to the helper. “What’s wrong?”

  The jolly fat man with a thousand songs who was a sucker for milk and cookies was there in flesh and blood and Naren was worried about the helper. Not a bad thing, considering that was the real reason she’d brought him to the island. What ailed the fallen helper was the very thing she couldn’t solve. She needed Naren’s help.

  A little more awe would have been nice.

  “I found him,” Nicholas said.

  Naren knelt down and took the helper’s hand, measured his labored breath and pried his eyes open. When he looked at the miser, he suddenly knew.

  “Can you fix him?” she asked. Fix, not cure.

  “You don’t want me to fix him,” Naren said.

  The miser shook her head. His brilliance was brighter than the star on the mountain. He saw right to the heart of his purpose. He wasn’t to fix the helpers.

  It’s to fix what ails them. The one thing I could never solve. The one thing he did.

  The helpers nudged Naren onto his feet and pushed Nicholas back. They took the helper by the arms and legs, gently supporting his head before lifting him up. Nicholas tried to help, but they squeezed him out like a colony of workers that had done this before.

  A door opened in the mountain.

  Instead of one of their brethren popping out, they slid the ill one inside. The door promptly closed like two halves of a clam, but not before the belly of the mountain was exposed.

  It glowed like a furnace.

  Nicholas tried to stop them. Naren didn’t because he knew what the helpers were. The one they threw into the mountain wasn’t ill, he was broken.

  He was artificial.

  The helpers were composites of synthetic stem cells, things that moved and seemed real but were no more real than the presents on the conveyor belts. They were stuff that walked and talked, sang and played. They were presents, nonetheless.

  They weren’t real.

  The helpers broke ranks and gathered in a line, sliding off like wedding goers—a brightly clad and long-tailed snake that wound its way beneath the surrounding matrix of machinery until the last one was gone. Their song remained and the mountain continued to feed the giant gift-wrapped box.

  “What did they do to him?” Nicholas said.

  “He’ll be fine, Nicholas,” the miser said. “Good as new, in fact.”

  The helpers knew how the mountain worked. They’d all been chucked into the mountain. They weren’t like the elven on the North Pole. They weren’t meant to live forever.

  But they could be recycled.

  “This is your home, Nicholas. I know what I said before, that you could choose to move down here, but I think we both know what I really meant.”

  She took their hands and squeezed.

  “Change is hard, I’ve been there. I suggest you cut away the past and look forward. We are the new Christmas, gentlemen.”

  Nicholas didn’t look angry, but profoundly disappointed. She cringed slightly. Perhaps there was a little hope he would see it her way by now, but that wasn’t realistic. It had only been a few weeks. A year or two or ten, he would see the wisdom.

  “Stay and make some snowballs,” she said. “I’m packing you a surprise. Don’t peek.”

  The helpers slid between her and Nicholas. They sensed his resistance. She had to admit his patience was impressive, but no amount of tantrums was getting him out of this. Even if he escaped the warehouse, there was the island and utter isolation.

  He was as wise as he was fat.

  She took Naren by the arm. Snow had piled onto his head. She wiped it from his brow while a trio of helpers cleared a path. Meeting Santa Claus was a bit of a mind bomb.

  “Where is he?” Naren said.

  She staggered a few steps, feeling faint. He saw right to the heart of things. Not only did he know she’d brought him here to fix what ailed the helpers, he knew exactly who she wanted him to fix. How perceptive.

  And how she swooned.

  Holding his arm tightly, they followed the helpers out of the warehouse. Before the doors closed, she was feeling quite generous. She could wave her arms and open the giant gift for Nicholas. It wasn’t Christmas morning, but why make him wait like he made all the children in the world wait? Still, she wanted it to be a surprise.

  And she wasn’t feeling that generous.

  MISER

  26

  They walked in silence.

  Naren stared at the ground, processing the fat man. All the things he believed about Santa Claus had just blown up in his face. She was having second thoughts about introducing them. She needed him to focus, needed him to stay on the island. It would be so much easier if he wanted to stay. She trusted his curiosity would keep him here.

  But right now, he teetered.

  The tower door was still open. Naren stopped when he saw it. The miser’s chest fluttered. Her weighted heart almost drove her to her knees. This was the part where he kept walking and all her dreams turned to ash.

  And everything around her turned to ash as well.

  “I know what I saw...” was all he could say. “You’ve achieved hyperplasic growth; you made those helpers and a man who looks like Santa...”

  He walked away and returned, continuing to pace as he ran his hand through his hair. It wasn’t important that he believed it right now, but eventually he’d have to accept that Santa Claus and the elven lived on the North Pole.

  Because soon they would be here.

  He stared into the dark hollow of her hood. He didn’t look tense or afraid or even angry. His eyes were still slightly wide, the shock still rigid and electric, but there was softness around his words.

  “I cut away my past,” she said. “I don’t know who I was before I became this, but I didn’t forget everything. Only the painful parts.”

  She left him with that.

  Left him standing outside the tower and walked inside without turning back. She walked to the second floor and looked out the window. Some of the helpers were outside the warehouse with new decorations. She stood in silence long enough to see the locomotive make one complete lap.

  And then a shoe scuffed the floor behind her.

  Naren entered the window’s reflection. She watched him from the recesses of her deep hood. He climbed out of the stairwell and waited. Perhaps he’d come for the challenge or curiosity dragged him up the steps. It didn’t matter.

  He came up on his own.

  There were two labs on the second floor. Naren had spent all of his time in one of them. He’d become familiar with the equipment and what it could do.

  Across the hall, the second lab had been locked.

  She’d kept it that way until they reached this critical moment—the one where he decided to stay. The miser opened it and stepped back.

  This was why he was here.

  A boy lay on a stainless steel table. A pillow propped his head up, his golden hair parted to the side, just like he liked it. His checkered shirt was ironed, arms at his sides, fingers touching the neatly creased shorts that reached to his knees.

  Her heart grew heavy.

  It swelled with flaming sadness that stretched the confines of her chest. The inside of her rib cage ached. She had extinguished her past—cut it away so that she didn’t remember the person she was, so that she couldn’t recall the anguish that led to who she had become—but she remembered a small portion from that life.

  The only good thing she wanted to keep.

  “I can make anything—a gift-giving mountain, an island paradise, technology that reaches across the world or fat little helpers to serve me. I can mold life and generate cheer. I can even control time, Naren.”

  Steam wafted from her hood.

  “But I can’t keep him alive.”

  She was grateful for the hooded cloak. It insulated her from the world and kept Naren from seeing the pain. She couldn’t face her own suffering, so how could she show it to someone else?

  She went to
her son’s side and brushed her fingers down his arm. The gloves and robe that kept her from harming him also kept them apart. She yearned to press her lips against his forehead, to feel the fever cooking inside him, to whisper it will be all right.

  Mother’s here.

  “I’ve tried everything,” she said. “I’ve stripped the DNA source code, regenerated pure lines of synthetic stem cells and rebuilt body after body. Over and over, he opens his eyes and remembers me. He lives, Naren...”

  But then the cells would begin a slow cycle of degeneration. Her son would begin to slow down, feeling heavy and tired. He would melt like snow on summer asphalt. Just like the helpers.

  This wasn’t new to Naren.

  He knew the limits of synthetic cell growth and regeneration. Organs for transplanting were one thing, but creating an entire organism was quite another. A kidney remained stable for decades, but an entire body... there was just something missing. Maybe it was the will to live or the artificial construct of an identity that couldn’t simulate a human life.

  “The helpers don’t live as long as my son,” she said. “I assumed that was because they’d never existed before I made them. They don’t have memories or any sense of life. They’re tools that look human. But Sonny has a past; it’s imbedded in the fabric of his DNA. He knows who he is, Naren.”

  She moved a stray hair from his forehead. His complexion was bleached, his eyes sunken.

  Anything but sunny.

  “He loved Christmas,” she said. “He would start writing letters to Santa before Thanksgiving. The stockings would be hung and the tree dressed. He hung lights outside the house better than grown men. We’d make cookies almost every day. On the weekends, we’d go to a nursing home and he’d give them to the residents and play board games with the old men.”

  A mirthless chuckle rose from her hood.

  There were moments she wanted to strip away the gloves and hold her son tightly. It hurt her, this fabric, this barrier between her and the world. He was out there, beyond her touch.

  She was trapped inside.

  Naren didn’t walk away or ask any questions. In fact, there was a touch of recognition in his expression. He seemed more comfortable than she expected. Maybe it was the familiar environment or another chance to work in the lab. Perhaps he was moved by her genuine suffering. She sensed he actually recognized her son, but that would be impossible.

  He didn’t know her before this.

  He searched for a pulse, pressing his fingers to the boy’s neck before prying his eyes open. He went to the monitors and returned. He stared into her deep hood where she hid. This time she did not look away but rather let him see into the shadows.

  “I have his medical history,” she said.

  “I know.”

  That was all he said before returning to the monitors. The miser held her son’s hand and squeezed. She didn’t expect Naren to embrace her. When she leaned toward her son’s forehead—not allowing her lips to touch him, pretending to kiss away the fever—something new happened. Tears had always evaporated on her eyelashes.

  This time they tracked down her cheek.

  KANDI

  27

  “Where is he?”

  “They came for him.” Sandy drifted away.

  “Who?”

  “The helpers, who else?”

  If he was telling the truth, he wouldn’t know where they’d taken him unless it was inside the resort. If he was telling the truth. But it was getting hard to know truth from fantasy. And Sandy wasn’t real. He was a technology ghost, an apparition made up by a program and projected in front of her. He was no different than watching TV.

  And I’m part of the show.

  Why should he help her anyway? It was just as likely he was part of the problem. There was only one person who she could trust, someone who was hiding in tunnels from this madness.

  He was here once. He escaped but was still trapped on the island with a scar on his back.

  A scar shaped like a hand.

  She jumped on the glider, soared out of B wing and into the tiresome celebrations. No matter how hard she pushed, Sandy stayed by her side.

  “I don’t know where they take him,” he said. “He just gets sad before the helpers come for him. That’s why I took you to see him. I knew it was coming. But he’ll come back. He always does.”

  “But it’s not him, is it?”

  “It’s exactly like him.”

  “You said there were others. Whoever comes back won’t be the same boy that made me a Christmas gift.”

  “It’s him, I swear.” Specks of grit blew out as he sighed. “But not really.”

  “Cris escaped, didn’t he?”

  “Who is Cris, again?”

  “Once upon a time, there was a boy named Sonny who escaped the room and now calls himself Cris.”

  “He named himself Cris?”

  “He escaped and that’s why she locks Sonny in the room. Am I getting warm?”

  “There’s that. It also protects him.”

  “From what?”

  “It’s all very complicated.”

  “Try me.”

  Sandy wiggled his stick fingers. “A mother’s love can be a little hot.”

  The scar.

  An accidental burn was one thing, but this was in the shape of a hand. It was as bizarre as everything else on the island. No wonder he escaped. Or did she do that to him afterwards? He was keeping away from her.

  For good reason.

  She brought the glider to a sudden halt. The momentum threw her into the handlebars—a safety feature that was missing on the tunnel glider. Sandy went soaring past her and splattered on the master suite doors. Kandi entered one of the side rooms.

  The telescope was still perched at the window.

  Sandy didn’t need to tell her where they took Sonny. It was one of two places, but she didn’t flip a coin to decide. She sighted the long, shiny tower through the telescope.

  That’s where the bad things happen.

  The building oozed the naughty list. It was an aberration surrounded by nature, windows with warped reflections that only looked out and seamless doors that were always locked. There was no way in.

  Not without help.

  “He had this glove,” she said. “He waved it at the gnats and then they flew off.”

  “Gnats,” Sandy muttered. “Gnats, gnats—”

  “They look like gnats, the little things that fly in clusters and follow me everywhere I go. But they’re not really gnats; they’re these tiny metal balls that hover—”

  “You mean the eyes.” He snapped his sticks. It sounded like twigs breaking. “They see you when you’re sleeping—”

  “How’d he do it? The glove was thin and silky but shiny, like it was dipped in metal. Every time he wanted to do something...”

  She looked for flies on the wall. Of course, the miser was probably listening. She hadn’t said anything she wouldn’t already know, but the trapdoor in the dormitory and sneaking through the window might get Cris caught.

  Have I already said too much?

  She was already feeling trapped and the resort was huge. Sonny seemed to like his room, but would it stay that way? Maybe Cris liked it in the beginning. She didn’t want to say anything that would lead him back there. Even if he believed freedom was just a state of mind.

  He’ll go nuts.

  He was her only hope of helping Sonny. He knew his way around the island. Only he could elude the miser and journey through the forest.

  She abandoned the telescope. There was nothing to see on the tower except her own warped reflection. She could call her dad, but he wasn’t going to help. She needed to get inside. The longer she stared from a distance, the longer she was outside.

  Kandi went to the master suite. She packed a water bottle in each pocket and bit into an apple. It might be a while before she ate again.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Sandy said.

  She changed her clothe
s, putting on long sleeves and jeans. These were the only items she hadn’t unpacked, but they were exactly what she needed.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Sandy said. “Don’t do it. There are things in the trees. You shouldn’t go alone.”

  “How do you know what’s out there?”

  “You told me. I’m reminding you. You might not come back, and then what am I going to do all day?”

  “You’re okay with Sonny going away, but not me?”

  “The, uh, helpers took him. That’s different.”

  “He doesn’t come back, Sandy. That’s called death.”

  “You got it all wrong.”

  “Cloning’s not the same thing as coming back.”

  “What’s the difference if the memories are the same?” He tried to keep her from peeling a banana, but his arm went through her hand. “Listen, it’s Sonny who comes back. Maybe it’s another body, but what does that matter? It’s him.”

  “That’s what she’s doing in the tower?” She dropped the banana peel. “Cloning?”

  “I don’t know what she’s doing.”

  That was probably a lie. “You’re a program, Sandy. You don’t know what it’s like to be human. You say things and you don’t know why. Penny for your thoughts? That’s what old people say. Why are you saying it? Because the miser wants you to say it.”

  “So I’m nobody?”

  “You said it yourself—you’re not real.”

  “Is your boyfriend real?”

  “What?”

  “You’re all gooey for Cris, admit it. He’s one of them, you know. One of the others.”

  “I didn’t say he wasn’t real. I said he wasn’t Sonny.”

  But she didn’t feel that way. She was all warm and fuzzy around Cris, but if he was some sort of clone, then how could he be real? Was he any different than Sandy? If she had a printed organ, would she be less real?

  “I got to go.”

  “Oh, sure. Hurt my feelings then leave.” He crossed his sticks.

  “You don’t have feelings.”

  “You don’t know that.”