“Okay, timeout. See, that’s where you’re wrong. First of all, don’t call me Janack. I’ve been telling you that for thousands of years and you’re still doing it. Do it again and I turn your kidney into a tub of ice cream.”
“I’d welcome that.”
“Oh, don’t get all sour grapes on me.” Jack raps his knuckles on one of the tanks. “Freeda shoved a cable into the back of my head, so don’t act all high and mighty. It itches, I get it. But you know why, dingbat? You know why it itches?”
Jack drags his fingernails across the steel table.
“All I wanted you to do was come here, amass a fortune, distribute slave technology, and reincarnate me. Is that too much to ask?”
Jack lifts Pawn’s head up with the crook of his finger.
“But you had to build all these tanks for your warmblood pets. It’s a waste of my time and money.”
“It’s called family, Janack.”
“Don’t call me that!” Jack puts his finger between Pawn’s eyes. The color bleaches from his irises. Ice crystals form on his eyelashes. He slides away, shaking with anger. He makes a complete circle around the lab to give Pawn’s ears time to thaw.
“You put green hair on me, Pawn.”
Jack flattens his palm on the tank next to Pawn. The surface begins to crackle. The glass fractures beneath Jack’s icy grip. He punches a hole through the suddenly brittle tank and the whole thing shatters.
A green lump slaps at Pawn’s feet.
“GREEN HAIR!”
A layer of frost covers Jack’s head, turning it from blue to a strange, very cold-looking coat of ice. The floor buckles as the temperature beneath his soles plummets. The fox runs to Mr. Frost’s side. He picks him up.
Frigid air streams from Jack’s nostrils, coating his jacket with crystals. His eyes bulge. He raises his fists, draws a deep breath, pulls his deep blue lips over pearly, white teeth…
“AaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
Icy lines race across the floor like tentacles, crawling up the walls and across the ceiling. Jagged lines wrap around the tanks.
Popping. Cracking.
Exploding.
Glass rains from all directions.
Green bodies tumble out of the shattered tanks, landing with wet thumps on the slick floor, limp and stagnant.
Jack wipes a thick layer of frost from his face, huffing to catch his breath. Air hisses between his teeth. He takes another lap to cool off. The bodies clog the aisles and force him to walk. When he returns, his flesh is baby blue.
Pawn remains at the table with the fox in his arms.
“What happened to us, buddy?” Jack asks. “We used to be on the same page, remember? Remember when we took control of the elven and tried to make the world a better place? Remember that? Remember when I was king and you were my right-hand man? Remember when you went everywhere with me, even took the root for me?”
Jack kicks a floppy arm.
“I’m gone a couple hundred years and look what happens. You have all this power, and you become a gardener? You put a statue of Jocah out there and build a wishing room? If that doesn’t scream distraction, I don’t know what does.”
Jack frowns.
“And how did you build a wishing room where Freeda can’t see or hear you?”
He had become despondent, sir. I was afraid we would lose him to madness and—
“Oh, my God. Are you still here?” Jack pulls upright. “Get to work! Besides, he’s a grown man, let him answer.”
Jack looks his friend in the cold, defeated eyes.
“I’m waiting.”
“I, uh.” Pawn puts the fox down. “I wasn’t well. The itch and Freeda’s voice made it hard to think. I wasn’t able to function; I needed a place to recuperate. Freeda actually suggested it. It’s a safe room; nothing can happen in there. It lets me visit home.”
“I got news, buddy. You’re already home.”
Jack taps the table. His fingernails sound like rock hammers. He’s thinking about what Freeda said. Maybe he’s acting hastily. If Pawn could build that wishing room, maybe he could turn Freeda against him. Maybe a visit to the wishing room would ease his mind. He could delay the meltdown a day or two. No reason he couldn’t do it on New Year’s Eve, right when the ball drops in Times Square. Everyone in the world would be watching.
“You’ve changed,” Pawn says.
Jack’s startled. “No, I haven’t changed, Pawn. This is exactly who I was two hundred years ago, you know that. There’s nothing good about me.”
Nothing good about me. Those words come out too easy.
“You don’t remember the end. The last time you updated the root was just before you died. You planned a victory celebration where you confronted your mother, but something happened. Your brother came out, unexpectedly.”
“First of all,” Jack says, “their names are Jocah and Claus, not mother and brother. I cut them out of the will.”
“Your mother asked for your forgiveness. Your brother did, too.”
“Yeah, yeah. Freeda told me about it.”
“But you don’t remember. You transformed in that moment.”
Jack chuckles and looks away. He doesn’t really want to hear this.
“I saw it happen,” Pawn says. “I was there, I saw you lose the coldness. I saw you filled with warmth, life, and love, that same experience you felt when you were near Sura—”
“All right, enough.” Jack steps on a squishy leg. He can’t slide away. He’d like to return to the tower now.
“Do you know how much it pains me to bring you back without that realization?” Pawn says. “To see you have that experience of being whole again and losing it? To see you return to your original elven self, right there on stage, and then have to bring you back without it? You’re alone, again.”
Jack climbs over a stack of wet bodies, their limbs tangled. His foot goes through the stomach of one. He stomps a path for the exit.
“Janack.”
Jack stops against his will. For some reason, the name doesn’t have the same sting.
“Let the kids go. They’re innocent.”
“They’re warmbloods,” Jack says, without looking back. “You’ve changed, Pawn.”
“Yes, I have. And I owe it to them.”
Jack plucks a mushy green foot from between his toes and tosses it. “You stay here with them. I’m going up to watch the show. And if anything goes wrong—and I mean anything—I’ll be throwing your foot across the room.”
Jack wants to slam the door, but there are too many body parts in the way. Instead, he races for the elevator.
Pawn better not ruin my Christmas.
-------------------------
Mr. Frost watches the green bodies freeze. They weren’t human; they didn’t have an identity; they were still plants. Still, his heart aches.
They will never be.
“It’s almost over, Max.” The furry white fox rubs against him.
The house shudders.
Mr. Frost climbs over the stiff botanical corpses. He reaches for the back door and hears the soft weeping. He hesitates. It’s almost too much to bear.
-------------------------
Jack steps out of the elevator to applause.
The helpers are standing in stadium seating, clapping like they’ve been waiting for him to arrive, high-fiving each other when he looks in their direction. He’s Elvis/Michael Jackson/Stevie Ray Vaughan all rolled into a fat, blue body.
“What’s going on?” Jack says.
I sensed your loneliness, sir, and invited them to keep you company.
The helpers don’t let up; they celebrate like the biggest game in history is only minutes away. The noise rattles his head. Maybe if they weren’t whistling.
“Out,” he says. “OUT!”
Silence.
“Get out, all of you! Get in the basement and stay there, every one of you. If I see one of your stupid hats before daylight, I’ll punt you like volleyballs!”
The elevator opens. They politely file inside.
“There’s only one trip down. Whoever’s left behind becomes a footstool.”
They pile into the elevator now, climbing on top of each other until it looks like a can of ugly, gummy gnomes. Jack shoves an arm and leg inside as the door closes with a groan.
The stadium seats fall flat.
“Status!” he shouts. “Tell me everything is good, Freeda. I mean it.”
Sir, it’s very good. Ninety-five percent of all toys along the East Coast will launch at midnight. That’s in exactly fifteen minutes.
“Why not one hundred percent?”
We have to account for aging and a certain percentage of malfunctions. Sir, ninety-five percent is far beyond what I anticipated. My projections were closer to sixty percent.
“Sixty percent would’ve got you fired.”
Jack looks out the window. The garden is lit with strands of white lights. The center glows around the remnants of the statue.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
He thought Pawn would be happier to see him, thought maybe he’d be so thrilled that he’d hug Jack and Jack would push him off, tell him to stop, but not really. And when Pawn finally let go, he’d have tears in his eyes.
They were supposed to sit together, like the old days. Jack’s big, comfy chair would be bigger because he was king. Pawn would slide the bucket of chum closer so Jack could reach it without getting up. They’d watch the master plan come full circle like old buddies. Old pals.
Pawn is in the basement. He doesn’t have a chair down there. He’s too grown up for chairs, so he can stay down there and think about what he’s done.
He’s grown. That’s the dumbest thing Jack ever heard. He changed—he didn’t grow up. He changed and Jack didn’t, and he needed to get that through his hairy skull or he’d spend the rest of his life down there with those slimy, green bodies.
Sir, if you’d like, we can—
“Shhh.”
Jack holds up his hand, cocking his head.
He swears he hears someone singing “Silent Night.” He invented that song, at least the “silent night” part. He didn’t have anything to do with the other words, but Freeda had told him how elven have influenced warmbloods. They stole the song from him.
That’s Jack’s song.
He sang it when he was little. It made him feel safe, like his mother was holding him. He liked that feeling, like everything was going to be all right, that the world loved him.
“Let’s just say it’s true,” he says out loud. “Let’s say I reconciled with my mother and brother at the end, that we hugged and kissed and everything was all peachy… that doesn’t mean I changed. Maybe I was faking it. Maybe they were lying, trying to trap me, and I was pretending to warm up. Pawn doesn’t know what I was feeeeeling; he just saw what was happening.”
Sir?
Jack’s lips snap shut. He said that out loud.
Five minutes until launch, sir. I’ve prepared a seat for you.
There’s a chair in the room. Only one.
It’s a big, comfy recliner with six snack buckets—krill, sardines, minnows, goldfish (the fat kind), tadpoles, and guppies—close enough he won’t have to get up. The ceiling is stacked with monitors, each of them showing a scene from a living room somewhere in the world. They all have Christmas trees.
Jack’s got the front row.
And if you wish, sir, you can choose one home to launch the first activation. Once we confirm success, we’ll simultaneously launch on all the homes along the East Coast. You’ll experience it firsthand.
He couldn’t care less which one. He thought this would be a little more exhilarating, that maybe there’d be a tingly sensation in his belly, like the time he stuck it to Pickett. Now he feels dull and heavy.
He has a thought. Maybe he should wait, like she said. He’d have to admit she was right, though. And maybe Pawn might stop acting so selfish and next year he could be up there next to him.
“Umm…”
Yes, sir?
“Yeah, I was thinking…”
Yes?
Jack shakes a finger at one of the monitors and sneers. Let’s get this over with.
The room transforms into a warmly lit living room.
The tower becomes four hideous walls splattered with family photos. There are two green couches to his left and a wall with a snow-crusted window. A coffee table is in front of him with a flickering candle. There are also pictures of Santa drawn with purple and red markers and a note and cell phone. A small plate of half-eaten cookies is on the floor. Beyond that are carpeted steps that lead upstairs, with garland wrapped around the banister.
Five minutes to launch, sir.
Jack yanks the note from beneath the cell phone. It’s written in giant, ugly letters.
Santa,
I hope you like chocolate chip cookies. I made them. I hope you have a safe trip. I hope we are safe. I hope you got Mom a present.
I love you.
From Cindy.
Jack wads it up.
The Christmas tree is surrounded by gifts, some wrapped better than others. Jack thinks about opening them and wonders if Freeda really knows what’s inside them so that she can project an exact replica. He’s never opened a present.
Far to Jack’s right, about ten feet from the Christmas tree, is the fireplace, where blackened logs smolder. There are four giant socks hanging from the mantel, all bulging with stuff. Mom, Dad, Cindy, and Kooper are written on each one with glitter glue. Kooper must be a dog. Or he likes bones.
Two minutes, sir.
Jack pulls a box from one of the stockings. Pop-Tarts. Cindy got Pop-Tarts from Santa. Jack never had a stocking. He sort of wishes he could see what a Pop-Tart tastes like. Probably disgusting, but he still wonders.
The steps creak.
Little feet appear on the top step. A girl comes down wearing a long shirt. She’s holding a ragged, pink blanket against her face and sucking her thumb. Her skin is brown. Jack wonders if Willie has a child and if she looks like that.
He watches her thump to the bottom step and stare at the mountain of presents. Her eyes are half-open, but her expression is filled with sleepy wonder. She basks in the magical colors dancing on the Christmas tree, the sparkly strips of tinsel hanging from the branches, draped over the gifts. She doesn’t move.
Jack, either.
She goes to the nearest one, the biggest of them all, a present wrapped in glittery red paper, and drops on her knees. Sucking sounds escape her thumb-plugged lips. She picks at the paper without letting go of the blanket.
It’s midnight, sir.
The cell phone vibrates. Not the intermittent buzz that indicates a text, just one long drone that slowly drives the phone across the table.
Cindy doesn’t notice. She’s turned the small hole into a long strip, exposing the box inside and colorful letters she’s not old enough to read. The blankie hits the floor and the thumb comes out. Both hands attack the present—
A laptop begins to vibrate.
Cindy looks up. Computers don’t vibrate.
The thumb goes back in the mouth. She grabs the blankie. She’s not about to cry, not yet. But when the TV vibrates, well, that’s enough to make anyone squeak a little.
Cindy squelches a cry, holding it inside her throat as she heads for the stairs. Just as she reaches the bottom step, the laptop falls off the desk. Cindy doesn’t see it slap the floor like a wet towel.
Jack’s still holding the Pop-Tarts.
The laptop melts like wax. The Apple logo spreads out like a stain and creeps through the carpet. The television slides off the entertainment center and eats through the bottom of the couch. The couch leans to one side as the TV goo consumes the leg.
The cellphone has eaten a hole through the table. The candle falls over. The flame catches the note on fire. The purple and red drawing of Santa crackles in the flame, black smoke curling at the edges.
Jack has crushed the Pop-Tarts.
It’s working exactly like it’s supposed to work. Slave technology consumes the room like roaming puddles of acid. And what it hasn’t dissolved, the fire licks. Black smoke rises to the ceiling, setting off a piercing alarm. The floor vibrates as the television puddle merges with the laptop. The cellphone blob gnaws its way from beneath the burning table.
The room shudders.
Sir.
Jack drops the crumpled box and grabs onto the mantel. The walls are shaking. Ornaments roll across the carpet, stick to the oozing pools, and melt. Holes open in the floor as slave technology converts matter into energy and miniature black holes transport the resulting explosions to another place in the universe.
The Christmas tree falls over.
Sir! We have a problem!
Dad runs down the steps, a look of horror lighting up his face. Jack realizes he doesn’t have long ropes of hair that dangle across his forehead, that that’s not Willie. But still.
Dad doesn’t notice the gray muck that’s creeping up the walls. Mom comes down with Cindy, sobs leaking around her thumb.
Jack thought this would be more fun to watch. Maybe using live projection wasn’t such a good idea. He’s thinking a quick update would suffice. He doesn’t need the blow-by-blow report.
A summary would be fine.
He’s thinking, as the floor fractures and the furniture looks like poorly molded clay, that he’ll take a nap, let Freeda handle the rest of this. He’s tired. He’ll wake in the morning and read about it—
“Stop!” Jack shouts. “Turn it off! I don’t want to see it!”
The scene evaporates; the tower is once again empty but continues to shake. Jagged cracks form on the floor.
The elevator emerges.
Sir, you need to evacuate.
“What?” Jack tries to keep his balance.
Something happened. The launch somehow triggered micro-nuclear reactions inside the laboratories.
“What?”
The foundation of the house is being consumed, sir. You need to evacuate.
Claus Trilogy (Boxed Set) Page 48