Cody Hawke's Mission to Save Christmas
Fiction: A fun little holiday short story (Topic: Fiction)
This story was written for the Soaring Twenties Social Club (STSC) Symposium. The STSC is a small, exclusive online speakeasy where a dauntless band of raconteurs, writers, artists, philosophers, flaneurs, musicians, idlers, and bohemians share ideas and companionship. Each month STSC members create something around a set theme. This cycle, the theme was “fiction.” Given the season, I wanted to do something Christmas related when I happened to come across the following writing prompt:
People don't seem to realize that figures of mythos evolve too. The Grim Reaper, for example, no longer wields his scythe, opting to harvest souls with a combine harvester. Cupid traded his bow for a sniper rifle decades ago. You're the dealer that supplies the mythical world with technology.
Exploring that idea loosely led to the following Christmas story, my second piece of fiction. Certainly, a “save Christmas” story is clichéd, but clichéd Christmas stories are fun, and, hopefully, I’ve managed to put a few unique twists into the mix. I hope you enjoy it. And Merry Christmas!
Whoosh! Bang!
Cody landed with a thud. What happened?! He shook his head, stood up and looked around the dark warehouse, smelling smoke.
How is it dark? And how am I in a warehouse? It was late afternoon!
He heard coughing coming from the other side of the…..spaceship? A smoking spaceship?
“Dammit!,” someone yelled, stumbling into view around the corner of the wreck. Cody’s Navy Seal training kicked in and he scrambled behind some boxes and out of sight to give himself some time to assess the situation.
The coughing man was heavy, fat even, with long white hair and a long beard, which he was patting frantically to stop it from continuing to smolder. His smoking hair was unkempt and sticking out in wild directions.
He looks like Santa Clause.
“Santa” grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and turned it on the “spaceship”, but the smoke had already dissipated and it didn’t appear to be getting worse.
“Better safe than sorry,” the wild-haired man mumbled, “Leo is going to kill me.”
Santa, as Cody had decided to call him, dropped the fire extinguisher and shakily walked out a small door on the other side of the building. Cody hurried to follow.
Not wanting to walk into a situation unprepared with no tactical information, Cody opened the door just a crack and peeked out into a dark alley. Since he didn’t see anyone, and there appeared to be no danger, he stepped out into the night and shut the door quietly behind himself.
He didn’t know where he was, but it sure wasn’t like anywhere he’d ever been back in Iowa. The alley was paved with cobblestones and the buildings looked like they had been built in the middle ages. He saw the old man, down to the right, disappear around a corner, so, wishing he had night vision gear and a weapon, he quickly crept down to the end of the alley and peered out both left and right.
Cody’s mouth opened in surprise at what he saw.
Gas street lamps lit the main pedestrian street. To the left, walking away from him, he saw a half-goat, half-man faun hand-in-hand with a green forest nymph.
What?
Cody shook his head, his military training certainly hadn’t prepared him for anything like this. The mythical couple was walking leisurely away from him, giggling, both with red and green ribbons tied in their hair and streaming down their backs. They appeared to be window shopping.
I must be dreaming.
He turned around to follow the old man and across the street, leaning against the wall, no, drunk against the wall, was a bull. No, not a bull. It was a minotaur, who also had red and green ribbons tied to, in this case, the tips of his horns. The minotaur hiccuped.
Cody, not knowing what else to do, turned to proceed in the direction Santa had gone.
“Happy Christmas! Hiccup!” The minotaur roared as Cody ran by. “Want a sip? Hiccup!”
The minotaur raised a dubious looking bottle of wine.
A talking minotaur? Christmas? It was Thanksgiving.
What was going on?
Cody stopped and walked back to the Minotaur.
He had been out in the corn field after Thanksgiving dinner when something had flown overhead and crashed out in the field, smoking. By the time he reached the ‘UFO’, the smoke had died down and it appeared to be, well, a spaceship of some kind. Cody had finally worked up the courage to touch it when he was somehow whooshed……well…..here. Wherever here is.
I must be dreaming. He thought again.
Cody pinched himself. Nope, still here. Where is here?
“Uh. No thank you sir” Cody said to the minotaur.
“Your loss!” the minotaur shrugged and buried his attention back in his bottle.
“It’s not Christmas, it’s Thanksgiving”
“Thanksgiving! Hiccup! That’s an American holiday isn’t it? Hiccup! Still, I’ll drink to that!,” the minotaur said with a wink.
He lifted his bottle and imbibed deeply.
“Besides, good sir, we celebrate Christmas all year round here!” he said as wine dribbled down the side of his….snout.
“Uhm. Sir, since you mentioned it, if I might ask, where is ‘here’?”
“Where are we? You don’t know where we are?”
He looked down the street and caught a glimpse of the old man, who turned right again into another alley.
“Please sir, I’m in a hurry”
The minotaur looked at Cody groggily and pointed at a sign on the building behind him.
It read, “Via del Natalia Obscura”
Natalia Obscura?
“Thank you sir!”
“Hiccup!”
Cody hustled down the medieval street and peered into the alley, passing a group of flying pixies leaving red, gold and green sparkles in their wake, and a group of gnomes that were singing “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!” at the top of their lungs.
Just as he peered around the corner, the old man pulled on a small arched door. It was locked. Santa looked both ways, put a finger to his nose
WTF?
Sparkles appeared around the door handle and it simply clicked and opened.
Oh. my. God. He actually is Santa.
Cody crept silently to the door and pulled it open, just a crack, and peered in.
***
Santa, there seemed to be no other explanation for who he was, was talking with another old man who also had white hair that, unbelievably, was even crazier.
"Dammit Nick", the other man sighed, "what happened to it?"
Santa rubbed his face, clearly agitated and embarrassed.
"I was in an accident, Leo."
Leo raised an eyebrow.
"Fine,” Santa sighed, “I had finished my day’s work checking up on some of the Regional Elf Distribution And Storage (REDAS) facilities. Finished early too, so I was feeling pretty good. And you know, on Christmas Eve, not everyone leaves milk and cookies for me. Some people realize that while I serve children, I am an adult myself and need the occasional pick-me-up. Imagine a night full of shots of whiskey, glasses of wine. And don't get me started on the grappa they leave me in Italy. I HAVE to drink a bit, of course. The people want to see that I was there and that I enjoyed their offerings……”
As Santa spoke, and since the men had moved away from the door, Cody quietly stepped inside and found a crate in a dark corner to hide behind.
“Anyway,” Santa continued with a shrug, “I’ve developed a bit of a taste for the sauce. I had the damn thing on auto-pilot to return to the north pole! So I toasted the day's work and was flying over Iowa, USA, when the autopilot failed and I had to take over! And I wasn’t driving at my best, having…umm….partaken a bit too much. But still, it wasn’t my fault! Something was wrong with the thing!”
Leo sighed again as he adjusted the scope on the rifle he was modifying. Rifle? Leo set down the screwdriver and motioned for Santa…Nick….to continue.
"Anyway, I was headed back to Christmas Village, with time to spare, and I was feeling great, so I did a couple of loop-the-loops, the auto-pilot malfunctioned, and I crashed into a cornfield in Iowa! The thing was smoking and I didn’t know what to do, so I used the One-Shot Site-to-Site Transporter (OSSST) and it must have returned to the warehouse where you built it. It is in the REDAS facility right around the corner. What’s left of it anyway.”
“Just lucky I'm immortal or we might not be having this conversation." Santa chuckled.
“Shit! That is just un-f’ing-believable!” Leo muttered.
"That was a brand new Toy-Mobile 4000 too!" Leo yelled. “Can we salvage any of it?”
Nick just shook his head. "You know how volatile that magic dust can be." Damn thing partially exploded right after I hit the eject button. By the way, I almost pulled a “Goose” Top Gun move and hit the canopy during the ejection procedure - you need to make it blow away and back further.”
The top gun reference was the first part of this conversation that even made sense to Cody. Santa watched Top Gun?
Nick took a deep breath and fixed Leo with a serious stare, “I’m going to need it fixed before Christmas Eve.”
“First of all” Leo shouted, “It’s not magic dust you idiot! It’s called Quantum Antimatter Particulate! (Q.A.P.) and it’s extremely rare and hard to refine!”
“Second of all” Leo fumed and spat, "Why can't you just use your damned sleigh then! My god, it worked for centuries and now you won’t even take the thing for a spin around the pole."
"We've been over this before, Q"
"Don't call me that, I'm not ‘Q’!"
"Yeah you are.” Santa chuckled. “We all come to you for these covert missions and you gear us up. You're Q”
“I was just talking with Cupid,” Santa continued, “He was happy with his crossbow for centuries, but some wanker in England wrote a short story about him using a long range sniper rifle instead and now he thinks he's some kind of Navy Seal or something.”
“But you delivered. I bet that rifle you’re working for is for him, isn’t it?”
Leo smiled sheepishly.
Santa flies with ‘Quantum Antimatter’ and Cupid carries a sniper rifle?
Cody was now sure he had gone insane.
“And now Cupid walks around with a rifle in a black case and insists on being called 'Smith.'”
“I read that story,” Leo replied, “if I recall, Cupid didn’t get his hands dirty. He hired a hitman to fire the gun.” Leo said.
“Yeah, but you know how he is. He loves action movies and thought it would be even cooler if he just carried the gun himself. He fired the bow himself, so he has a point you know. “Anyway, you are Q, our Q. I know you can build what I need. What about that hi tech gizmo you built for The Grim Reaper? Laser pointer and all. He hung up his Scythe a century ago."
Santa looked around conspiratorially. Don’t you dare tell him I told you this: Grimster is thinking of changing weapons again. He saw one of those large John Deer tractors, you know the kind they use to thresh wheat on big corporate farms? A combine harvester. He’s salivating at the thought of just sending an automated harvester in to collect souls in mass.”
Leo rubbed his face again. “I need to bring these guys back down to earth.” he muttered.
“Personally, I think it sounds horrible.” Santa continued, “But he figures he could cut his hours and spend more time in his music studio. He fancies himself a classical pianist. But he keeps talking about “efficiency.” regarding his work. Anyway, I wanted to give you a heads up.”
“Thanks”
Geez. Leo thought. These guys are harder to work with than anybody. Why did I ever agree to run the mythological figures division of our family arms business? I should have worked with my cousins over in the superhero division. A combine soul harvester? How the hell am I going to get out of that one?
Leo hoped Grimster was running low on funds.
“Back to your problem, Nick. Do you know how much Quantum Antimatter Particulate it takes to power a Toymaster 4000? It took me a decade to refine enough to build the last one.”
“Look Q” Santa winced, “sorry. Look Leonardo, don’t you worry about the magic dust…er…QUAP, you just build the thing, and I’ll take care of the magic dust. I’ve got some favors I can call in with the dwarves”
“The dwarves?” Leo asked, “what do they have to do with it? They’ve been hidden away under that mountain of theirs for centuries!”
“They are sitting on metric tons of the metal you need to synthesize the QUAP”
“It’s not ‘QUAP’ you idiot, that sounds like ‘Crap’. It’s Q.A.P. short for Quantum Antimatt….never mind, the dwarves have it?”
“Yes” Santa smiled, “They keep it under wraps and they don’t call it ‘magic dust’ or ‘Q.A.P’, they refer to it as thimril….or as Tolkein incorrectly called it in Lord of the Rings: mithril.”
Leo’s eyes widened with realization.
“Really?” Leo perked up. “I could use more of it for the stuff I’m building now for some of the extended crew. Maybe we can deal?”
“Ho. Ho. Ho. Ho.” Santa’s eyes twinkled. He had Leo right where he wanted him.
And he saw that realization in Leo’s eyes.
“You just build me another Toymaster 4000” Santa chuckled, and then we’ll talk about that magic dust.”
“You guarantee me some dust” Leo countered, “And I’ll build you a Toymaster 4500. I’ve got some serious upgrades in mind.”
“Like what?”
Leo ran to a bookshelf in the corner and got out an old dusty notebook and flipped past the drawings of the flying machines, the Vitruvian man, and the cannons.
Leo chuckled to himself.
Crude devices and drawings by today’s standards, but they had worked. But once the supernatural world had discovered the magic dust as the mythological guys called it. Or Quantum Antimatter Particulate, as Leo called it, everything had changed. Leo had a theory that the metal, the thimril, was from another planet. In any case, with its discovery, his designs had been able to grow much grander and bolder. After all, things were simpler once you were able to alter the laws of physics. Anyway, Leo flipped past the Toymaster 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 to his latest drawings.
And there it was: The Toymaster 4500.
“Here it is” Leo tapped his finger on the page, while Santa looked over his shoulder.
“If you can secure the dust, Nick, this model has a 30% improvement and can travel at .95c, that’s 95% the speed of light with no time dilation. Plus for the first time, I think we can generate a warp field to create a pocket universe. You can put the whole damn elf workshop into the pocket universe and just take it with you! No need to load up bags these days.”
“All right.” Santa said with an excited gleam in his eye, “I’ll pay you half in solid gold. Half in magic dust. Not a word of this to anyone. And I won’t have my dust being used in that cursed combine harvester. If anyone asks you, we never had this conversation.”
“Done.”
“All right. I gotta go. You’ll have it done by December 15th? I can test drive it then, and if anything goes wrong, well, let’s just hope nothing goes wrong.”
“OK, I can put off some things, and hopefully I can salvage a lot from your wreckage.”
“Good, thanks Leonardo. By the way, Mr. Clause wants to commission a portrait. She really loves what you did with um…Madam Lisa.”
Leo sighed again. “Mona Lisa. My painting is called the Mona Lisa.”
“Right, whatever. Can you throw in a portrait of my wife? I’m probably the only person in the world who could commission a Davinci portrait as a Christmas present for his wife.”
Leo is Leonardo Da Vinci? How? Cody balked.
“Sure.”
“OK, thanks Q um….Leo”
Leo waved Santa out.
“Not yet.” Santa said. “There’s still one problem.”
“What now!”
“We need someone to convince the dwarves to give us the Thimril.”
Sigh.
“Why can’t you do it?”
“I can’t do it because I have to stay and get ready for the big day. I have more REDAS facilities to check on, I have to keep the elves on task, it’s my busy time of year, you know. I guess I’ll have to use the damn sleigh in the meantime for that work. I can buy us some leeway by partnering with Amazon Logistics, but that won’t solve the issue. And you can’t do it, because you have to build my new Toymaster 4500!”
“Then who’s going to do it?” Leo asked “ Those dwarfs are tough sons of bitches. You need someone used to a rough crowd. Shit. You need a soldier.”
Santa’s eyes twinkled.
“Leo, I think it’s time I introduced you to our uninvited guest.”
Santa turned and looked right at the crate where Cody was hiding behind.
“Cody, I think it’s time you came out and met Leonardo. We have some things to discuss. And, if you’ll agree to help us, then maybe, just maybe we can save Christmas!”
Cody stepped out from behind the crate.
Santa turned to Leonardo and said, “Leo, meet Cody Hawk, Navy Seal. Cody, meet Mr. Leonardo DaVinci.”
“How did you know I was there?” Cody asked, dumbfounded.
“He knows when you’ve been sleeping, he knows when you’re awake. He knows when you’ve been good or bad….remember?” Santa laughed.
****
In another dark alley, across Florence, a hooded figure ducked into another darkened warehouse.
He stopped before a table and uncovered what appeared to be a crystal ball. He muttered some words in an ancient tongue and, as the ball began to glow, a grotesque figure with gleaming red eyes appeared, translucent, above the table, as if projected from the ball.
“Is it done?” The projection boomed in a deep voice.
“Santa’s vehicle was destroyed, master, but he survived. And now he has help from an American who hitched a ride with him. He and DaVinci have a plan to save Christmas!”
“You have failed me!”
“No master, their plan is extremely difficult, even if I don’t interfere, which I will. They will not succeed. I pledge this to you.”
“For your sake, they better not.” Said the voice as the master faded into nothingness.
The hooded figure shivered and then turned to go about his evil work.
***
What happens next? We’ll have to wait until next year to find out!
Merry Christmas!
Clintavo
