Humbug (The Unwinding of Ebenezer Scrooge): A Science Fiction Adventure, page 6
She hovered over the desk until all traces of hope vanished, then reached into her pocket for a folded piece of paper.
“What’s that?” he said.
“A letter to Santa Claus.”
Eb pointed at it. The projection room saw what she was holding and put it on his monitor. It was a wish list.
“Dear Santa,” she said. “Please reinstate all funding back to our medical lab. If you don’t, we’ll have to close it by June.”
“Santa doesn’t work here, Jerri.”
“Next,” she continued, “please do not discontinue Avocado’s annual donations to MPS research.”
“Your granddaughter.”
“Jacob would want the company to continue supporting the cause, you know he would.”
“He—”
“And third, Santa, if you can’t bring me those gifts, then I’d like for you to make my third wish happen.”
He looked at the third line. Have a Merry Christmas, Ebenezer Scrooge.
She placed a small box on his desk before leaving, a tiny bow on top.
The office was quiet again.
The girls’ contagious laughter carried through the door. Eb shouted for the droid to control them.
He stayed in his office until, one by one, the employees clocked out to go home to their families, to have dinner, to sit around a fire, to put out milk and cookies and open the fireplace for Santa and his bag of goodies.
At 5:00 p.m., the lights went out.
The avocado logo was dimly lit. No stockings to fill, no gifts to wrap.
Eb reached out for the little gift, but his projection wouldn’t allow him to grasp it. No amount of modeling would tell him what was inside. He’d have to go there and open it. And that wasn’t going to happen.
As far as Ebenezer Scrooge was concerned, Christmas was just another day on the calendar.
EIGHT
~
MASHED POTATOES AND GRAVY, cranberry sauce and the smell of roasted turkey infected the house. A special meal, the droid had said. For the girls.
Eb twitched. For the girls. Everything for the girls. How quickly he had been forgotten. An afterthought! The house was named Castle Scrooge, not Playhouse Addy and Natty. The droids hadn’t even asked if he wanted something for Christmas dinner. It should’ve been obvious why, but still… it would’ve been nice.
He sped away from the projection room. “Call Rick.”
A holo unfolded over the handlebars. The picture was a steel gray blank. He tapped a nervous rhythm with his rings.
“Rick, pick up.”
He passed through the foyer and began to make circles beneath the chandelier and was about to make the call urgent—a command that would force his production manager’s rings to squeal—when color flickered across the holo. A lamp brightened the corner of a room, garland draped over the shade.
“Mr. Scrooge?” The forty-something production manager stepped into view, unshaven and slightly bleary-eyed.
Eb averted his gaze from the God-awful sweater—tiny bells sewn onto antlers and a blinking red nose.
“I need you to look something up.”
“Sir, it’s Christmas Eve,” Rick said.
“It’s Thursday, Rick.”
Someone said something. Rick cleared his throat and looked off to the side. “We’re opening presents,” he said.
“Your presents aren’t going to run away, Rick. Unless you got them a puppy. You didn’t get them a puppy, did you?”
Rick shook his head.
“Is there a secret project?” Eb cut the chitchat.
“What?”
“Is there an encrypted secret project that I’m not aware of? It’s pretty simple, Rick. Look up our projects and find the one that doesn’t belong.”
Jerri was specific about that. Eb meant to corner her, but then she had gotten off track, and then he was distracted with her gift and all that stuff about medicine and sick kids. There was nothing secret at Avocado that didn’t directly involve Eb.
He was the secret-maker.
“Rick?”
“Mr. Scrooge, really… I’m going to be divorced if I work now.”
“Goodie.” Eb felt personally responsible for many of Avocado’s broken marriages. Once an employee was divorced, he or she had nothing else to do but work. Who said divorce was failure?
“I’ll have to open the database,” Rick said, “but it’ll take a little while to run a search. I’ll do it as soon as the kids are asleep.” He impatiently twisted the metal band on his finger. “I’ll call later tonight.”
“Rick?”
“Yes, Mr. Scrooge?”
“Is your wife looking at you right now?”
He shook his head.
“Are you lying, Rick?”
He hesitated, looking off to the side again. “It’s Christmas Eve, Mr. Scrooge.”
The Segway eased to a stop. He would’ve kept going, but the droid was blocking his path.
“Dinner is ready, sir.”
“I’m busy.” Eb looked at the holo and Rick’s uncomfortably pale face then back to the dull gray droid. “What are you wearing?”
“A tuxedo, sir.”
“Why?”
“The girls’ request, sir.”
“You can say no to them, you know that?”
“Yes, sir. Dinner is waiting.”
“Well, I’m working.”
“It’s 6:00 p.m., sir.” The droid had him there. It was dinner time. Get too far off schedule and the sky would fall.
“Be there in a minute.”
The droid held his position. The Segway refused to run him over even when Eb leaned into it. Stupid safety features.
“Mr. Scrooge?” Rick said.
“All right, all right. Go eat your figgy pudding. And call back when your ball and chain isn’t busting your—”
“It’s Christmas Eve, sir.”
Eb killed the connection. Rick’s pallid expression vanished. “It’s Thursday. Satisfied?”
“Thrilled, sir. After you.”
Eb’s eye twitched. He thought it was the girls giving him nervous tics, but now he wondered if it wasn’t that droid dressing up in gym clothes and wedding gowns and cowboy costumes and now a tuxedo.
He was making Eb mental.
~
A fire crackled in the dining room.
A massive candelabrum flickered in the center of a long table. The roasted turkey sat on one side, side dishes on the other. Saliva pooled beneath Eb’s tongue.
A table setting was at one end. He dismounted the Segway and stood behind his high-backed chair. At the other end, framed by two tuxedo-clad droids, Addy and Natty waited with ribbons in their hair.
Addy is for apple, red as can be, the droid taught him. And Natty is neither, but green as a tree.
But Addy had a green dress to go with her red ribbon and Natty’s dress was red. How was he supposed to remember that? Their dangling feet drummed on the chair, hard-soled shoes tapping in rhythm.
“Stop the noise,” Eb said.
They giggled behind their hands.
“What?” He didn’t mean to shout. The table was ridiculously long, but sound carried like a bullet on the hard floors. His emotions had a hair-trigger, and everything seemed to pull it. Especially two little girls laughing at him. And the droids, too. They looked at him and laughed out loud.
He checked his zipper.
“Why are you laughing?” Eb half-whispered.
“They said you’d say that, sir,” the two droids said in tandem. “That you’d tell them to stop the noise.”
“They did? Well, if they knew, why were they doing it?”
“Because their feet don’t touch the floor, sir.”
“Just… serve the food.”
These dull gray dingbats were spoiling them. He needed to look at their programming and tighten it up a bit. Maybe insert the word no into their vocabulary, require it at least twenty times a day. Not to Eb, of course. He was spoiled, too. But he was an adult.
Big difference.
A third droid entered the dining room and filled Eb’s glass with water. Food was dished out by the other droids. The clatter of silverware bounced around the high ceilings. Eb took three bites before chewing.
“Why are you two off your docks?” He pointed his fork at the droids. “We only need one.”
“The girls require us, sir,” the one next to him said.
“No, they don’t.”
“They’re six years old, sir.”
“So?” A red globe caught a flicker of candlelight. “What’s that?”
“A candelabrum, sir. The girls thought we should light it for this special occasion.”
“You know, can we all just agree that it’s Thursday?”
“It’s Christmas, sir.”
“First of all, I don’t care. The girls don’t run this place.”
“Of course not, sir. You do.”
“Don’t patronize. Secondly, I know what a candelabrum is. I was talking about that.” He shook his finger at the red globes hanging from the candelabrum.
“Ornaments, sir.”
“Ornaments?”
“Decorations, sir.”
“I know what an ornament is!” His round spectacles slid down. “How’d they get there?”
“The girls thought they looked pretty, sir.”
Eb dropped his knife and fork, mopped his greasy fingers with the linen napkin and leaned his elbow on the table. His finger danced left and right, bouncing between the two tuxedoed droids.
“You and you, get out.” The droids continued helping the girls cut their turkey. “And take the ornaments with you. How’d those even get in the Castle?”
“The girls ordered them, sir.”
“Ordered them?”
“They—”
“Yes, yes, I know what ordered means. They can’t just order whatever they want, you understand? They don’t make the money around here. In fact, they make none. I make money.” He walloped his chest, a wave roiling his belly. That spot would be sore in the morning. “I didn’t say they could order anything, now did I? I want to see everything they request, you understand? Nothing gets ordered unless I approve it.”
“You did approve, sir.” The droid stretched a holo on the table. Eb’s signature was on the daily expenditures list.
“When did I—you know what, forget it. From now on, nobody gets anything. How’s that?”
It was a forgery, it had to be. But why argue. It was stupid little ornaments today, but then it would be boxes of them tomorrow and a tree the next year. They would have boxes of all new stuff that would be thrown away and then more boxes and more stuff and more garbage.
He had to put a stop to it before it got rolling on ice.
He would have to pay closer attention to what he was rubber-stamping. This never happened at Avocado; he had to watch those people. Every penny wasted was a penny out of his pocket.
He immersed himself in newsfeeds as he shoveled down the meal and basked in the glory of warm emotions. If ever the Christmas spirit were to infect his cold and shriveled heart, it would be hearing the rave reviews of Avocado products.
That was Eb’s explanation for the spirit of Christmas or romantic love or whatever gooey emotion made people act a fool. Glue whatever label you want to the feeling, oxytocin was behind it. These good feelings were the result of hormones, a brainwashing that expanded the consciousness, opened the mind, brought a smile to grim lips. Oxytocin, people. Whatever triggered that waterfall of hormones invited the Christmas spirit into his house. And right now it was rave reviews.
Eb was bathing in it.
Tom-tom-tom. The thudding of black, shiny shoes was followed by giggling. Eb looked up from his second glass of red wine, the room warmly glowing in the halo of the love hormone.
The droids leaned over to receive a secret. The girls gated their lips with tiny hands, but it did nothing to hide the volume.
“Ree-ree moi tu,” they said.
“What was that?” Eb said. “What did they say?”
“They want to give it to you now, sir.” The tuxedoed droids stood tall.
“That’s not what they said… reeree tuba something.”
“Ree-ree moi tu, sir.”
“Is that French? Are you teaching them French? I didn’t say you could teach them French; we speak English in this house.”
“It’s their own language, sir. They make it up and teach it to me.”
“Tell them to stop. I can’t understand it.”
“Certainly, sir. Anything else you’d like me to stop? Laughing, perhaps? Little puppies and dreams? Hope?”
“I’d like you to stop talking.” Eb drained his wine.
None of the conversation slowed the girls’ laughter. They hid behind both hands, their nails painted green and red and sparkly, joy spilling between their fingers, their shoes thumping the drums.
The droids whispered in their ears, truly whispered. Eb couldn’t hear what they said, but the girls nodded. The droids held out their hands, dull gray platforms where the girls each placed an object. The droids swiftly brought them the length of the table, one on each side, both carrying them like they were delivering the Hope Diamond. They stopped at Eb’s end of the table.
They were tiny boxes.
One was green and the other red. The green gift had a red ribbon and the red one had green ribbon. Addy is for apple, red as can be. Natty is neither, but green as a tree.
“What’s that?”
“Gifts, sir.”
“We don’t do gifts.”
“You don’t, sir.”
Eb stared like screwworms would spill out.
“It’s not radioactive, sir.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You just have to open them, sir. You don’t have to play with them.”
“I didn’t get them anything.”
“You can talk to them, sir. They’re right down there.”
Eb hesitated. The girls were peeking between their fingers, stifling giggles. “How about I get you some new clothes?” he accidentally shouted. “Something not green or red.”
Laughter spilled out.
“You have everything already,” Eb said. “What more could you possibly want? You want your own castle? How selfish!”
“You can just open the gifts now, sir.”
“This is just one of the reasons why I hate Christmas. It’s the want, want, want and the gimme, gimme, gimme. These insatiable holes that never fill up. It’s throwing away perfectly good stuff to replace it with something new and shiny, that’s all it is. It’s sickening.”
“Of course, sir. Why would you want people buying all those Avocado products? It’s heinous.”
“And don’t even get me started on birthdays!” His laughter was slightly maniacal.
“Sir?” The droid nudged the gifts.
“All right, all right. But under protest, you understand. I’m only opening these because you want me to.”
Eb pushed the plate aside to make room for the gifts. They were about the size of the box Jerri had put on his office desk, a present he couldn’t open. Eb tugged the ribbon. It unraveled. He rubbed his hands, resisted a tiny glow of warmth in his belly as he wondered what was in it, the moment of anticipation setting off fireworks as he pinched the lid between finger and thumb.
Inside, something was wrapped in tissue paper.
Eb picked up the weighty object—smooth and round and black.
“What is it?”
“You have another one to open, sir.”
“Is it the same thing?”
“Just open, sir.”
He did. It was.
“What are they for?”
“They’re down there, sir,” the droid whispered.
The girls sank in their chairs. The hard soles of their shoes tapped the floor. Eyes were just above the table.
“What do I do with these?” Eb shouted like they didn’t speak the language.
“Gubmuh,” Addy said.
“Gubmuh,” Natty answered.
“English, please!” Eb turned to the droid. “Tell them English. I don’t speak weirdo. Look, I don’t speak—”
“Paperweights, sir. They found the stones on one of our walks and thought you could use it for work.”
Eb rubbed his thumb over the rounded edges, the cold smooth surface. There were probably a billion of them just like that in the valley. A billion, at least. And they put one in a box and called it a present.
“Brush your teeth and all that,” Eb said. “Get ready for bed.”
“Would you care to say thank you, sir?”
“Where are my manners? I’ve always wanted a rock.” Eb shoved his chair back and stood. “Get some sleep now, girls. We’re going on television in the morning, and I don’t want you speaking ding-dong language, you understand?” Eb turned to the droid. “Got that? I’m not joking.”
“Of course not, sir.”
“And put a different dress on them. People are going to think I don’t pay them any attention, for crying out loud.”
Eb stormed out of the dining room.
“We wouldn’t want them thinking that, sir.”
“I heard that!”
NINE
~
The bathroom was painted with fragrance.
Eb put the finishing touches on his hair and opened his robe to inspect the bod, swearing he’d lost a pound or two, before cinching up. His mood seethed beneath a stench of face lotions and body creams. No matter how good he smelled, an emotional infection continued to fester. It wasn’t the fashionistas that made him feel so foul. They hadn’t commented on him whatsoever. Pink Stripe wasn’t on the show anymore, but that pleasure was short-lived.
He didn’t know what it was.
The snow-laden valley was sharply lit with a quarter moon, the white carpet pure and untouched. Eb teetered on the hoverboard, the bitter cold seeping through the glass.
Someone cleared their throat.
“Did you find it?” Eb said without turning.
“No, Mr. Scrooge,” Rick said from the holo. “There’s nothing on the project list.”
Silence stretched across the room. Rick cleared his throat again before saying, “What… makes you think there’s a secret project?”
