ROOM 15, ELF BARRACKS #23
SLEIGH LAUNCH : T-MINUS 5h : 43m : 18s

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“Now, that is one messed up elf,” said Zophiel, trying to keep her shoes out of the brain spatter. It was hard, though. Not many places to stand. “And no witnesses?”

Miffles shook her head, the bell on her hat, tinkling, as she flicked through her notes. “Executive barracks, no-one else around. One of the perks, apparently. He dismissed the cleaner, Mrs Tinselcake, last night. Eight-thirty. She came back, nine a.m. Found him like this. She’s pretty shook up.”

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“Not gonna lie,” said Zophiel, “I thought we’d cleaned up all the firearms in the Pole three years ago. Elves just can’t be trusted with guns. Uprising taught us that. Any leads on where our friend here got a point 05 revolver in the first place?”

“No leads on where he got it,” said Miffles, “and no lead on why he’d want to do this to himself. Made a pretty mess.”

 

“Well...” said Zophiel as she pulled out her phone, “...I mean, he has a cleaner.”

 

Zophiel started taking pictures of the body, hitting all the angles. Scene of crime would do this officially in a bit, when she let them in, but she always needed to do her own thing first. She had an affinity for violence the SOCO’s just couldn’t touch. She was an angel, after all. Violence was just her thing.

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Elves were small but they bled a lot. The Elf Uprising three years ago had been short but that had definitely been a take-away for Zophiel. And this dude, he demonstrated that perfectly.

“Don’t miss this spot here,” Miffles pointed to the bedside cabinet where the HO-HO-HO 9mm had fallen after being fired. Zophiel crouched there and got some close-ups of the weapon. Position certainly seemed consistent with self-use. 
Miffles was right, good spot. She was a good elf, that’s why Zophiel always requested her when she was sent here. Elves were generally way emotional but Miffles was a thinker.

“Big man been notified one of his top elves fed himself a bullet on Christmas Eve?” Zophiel straightened up, pocketed her phone.

 

Miffles nodded. “Yep. And he was pissed. I mean, I wasn’t there, thank God-”

 

“Hey.”

“Sorry. But someone from the office told me. Apparently, he smashed stuff for twelve minutes straight.”

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Zophiel nodded as her eyes continued to scan the gingerbread room. The big man was a fright, alright, even at the best of times. But with Sugarplumb McFluffy biting it like this, on the biggest night of the year… (well, second biggest - where she was from, Easter still drew the bigger crowds). Well, the SC wasn’t going to be pulling any punches, that was for damn sure. Aside from his people trying to keep launch preparations on track, the man himself would be wanting answers. After the Elf Uprising, he’d personally cleansed the ranks. Dealt with the ring-leaders with his own two hands. Only Santa loyalists were left on the job, now. If McFluffy turned out to be an outlier, the SC would be pissed he’d missed one - and one so senior at that.

“Well, there’s one thing we need in order to crack this,” Zophiel said at last as she buttoned up her coat, folding her wings in tightly underneath. “We need to find out what happened to that laptop.”

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Miffles looked at her boss, quizzically. “Laptop?”

Zophiel gestured to the side of the bed as she turned towards the door. “The one that goes with the power cable over there.”

Miffles glanced down to see the laptop cable. The computer end trailed by the side of the bed but the other end was still plugged into the mains.
“Someone was here..!” Miffles said, catching up - figuratively and literally. Her boss was halfway to the door. “They took the laptop but didn’t realise the power cable was there. Betrayed their presence. Great spot, ma’am! Where… where are we going now?”

“I need to speak to someone about that laptop,” said Zophiel. “Luckily, I know a guy.”
 

THE WORKSHOP
SLEIGH LAUNCH : T-MINUS 5h : 08m : 51s

“Gee willikers, Zophie, I can’t lie, but this isn’t the best time for you to be here. Things are crazier than a popping popcorn right now.”

 

Sugarplumb Cinnamonstick  pushed himself away from his first desk and his wheeled office chair rolled across the busy workshop floor until he landed at his second desk. His first desk was covered in papers while this one had pieces of wooden soldier limbs scattered all over it.

It had taken Zophiel quite a while to learn the Elvish naming conventions on her first visit to the North Pole. Sugarplumb, for example, was an extended family of several thousand, whereas Cinnamonstick - while it was a given name - was still shared by several immediate family members. When her old friend went home at night, all seven people in his house were called Sugarplumb Cinnamonstick. Fortunately, she had another name for him.

“Listen, Sandals,” she said. “I know this is a busy time-”

 

“Busy time?” Sandals barked out a harsh laugh as he swiped several toy soldier heads off a huge, open leather-bound book full of unintelligible elvish scribbles. “Busy time? When the humans are about to launch a rocket to the moon, that’s a busy time. When we’re about to launch the boss through multiple timewarps, wormholes and gravity fields with over two billion presents on his back, that’s not busy, my cloud-hopping friend. That’s motherstocking chaos, and no mistake. Hi, Hollymouse.”

“Cinnamonstick,” Miffles nodded. The two elves had never met but due to the ridiculous amount of cloning, it was quite easy for elves to tell which family another elf belonged to. And they were always polite and always introduced themselves.

“I just need you to track a laptop for me,” said Zophiel, stepping out of the way of an elf pushing a trolley of mail ten times her size. Elves were small but they were engineered to be ridiculously fast and strong in order to get all the work done. The SC had considered re-engineering them after the Uprising. Downgrade them a smidge. But, at the end of the day, Christmas Day still needed to happen. And for that, he needed a large and powerful workforce. That’s why, three years ago, he’d executed the ring-leaders but left many of the other participants alive. The show most definitely had to go on.

 

“Can’t you come back, Boxing Day? Or… no, I’ll still be sleeping on Boxing Day… make it the day after Boxing Day.”

 

“I’m working the McFluffy case, Sandals. I need you to do me this favour, okay?”

“McFluffy? Why didn’t you say so? Him going to the big sleigh in the sky is one reason things are so crazy today,” Sandals said. “Okay, let me log in over here.”

The elf pushed himself once again and sailed across the busy floor to yet another desk, this one housing several candy-striped computers.

“Sandals here can make three hundred toy cars an hour,” Zophiel said to Miffles as they stood behind the workshop elf. “But his IT skills got him promoted to head of Electronic Presents.”

 

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Miffles said to her fellow elf, “but… Sandals?”

The elf glanced up at the angel, a smirk crossing both their faces.

“Long story,” Sandals said as he turned back to the screen.

“And quite rude,” said Zophiel. “Bawdy, even.”

Miffles decided not to pry any further. Elves were not supposed to do or say anything that could be described as rude and certainly not bawdy. But the Sugarplumbs… well, the worst stories always seemed to include a Sugarplumb somewhere.

“Okay, here we are…” Sandals said. A whole load of elf letters and numbers flashed across the screen but Zophiel could just about make out McFluffy’s name. “Oh, now that’s interesting,” said Sandals.

“What is interesting?”

It hadn't been Zophiel who had spoken those words. It was someone with a much deeper and more threatening voice than her. Someone standing right behind the group. The angel and the two elves turned around to see the big SC standing there, face red and puffy, beard scraggly with stress and his fists resting on his hips. And even that couldn’t hide from Zophiel the fact his knuckles were red raw and bloody. Yes. The man was a fright.

“Your Highness,” the angel said.

 

“Zophiel, isn’t it?” said the SC. His voice was low and rumbling and not the kind of voice you wanted to hear say your name. “Yes, I was told we’d be getting an angel down for this. So. Again. What is interesting?”

Sandals stood quickly and clumsily to attention. “Well, I think we might have found our List culprit, sir.”

“List culprit?” Zophiel asked.

The SC spoke, firm and grim, staring into the angel’s eyes as if he were the devil himself. “A few hours ago, someone accessed our system under my login and deleted The List.”

Zophiel had to resist the urge to put her hand to her mouth in shock. Miffles, bless her, was not so successful.

“The List? The actual List?” Miffles said, before she could stop herself. It was not her place to speak in front of the SC unless she was spoken to first.

“We have 2.2 billion presents sitting on a sleigh out there and no List,” SC continued. “With nothing to match a present to a child, that sleigh is just a great big motherstocking paperweight with eight reindeer strapped to it. We don’t get that list, Christmas is officially cancelled. And if that happens, I am going to actually kill somebody.”

For reference : Not an idle threat.

“The interesting thing, though,” said Sandals, “is that we have a ping on the active directory authentication logs. The root IP subdomain of the invasive process matches the account subdomain used by the laptop you’re looking for.”

Zophiel, Miffles and the SC all looked at Sandles, who - for the sake of not annoying the SC - tried his best not to sigh as he restructured his sentence into one more fitting the technical level of his audience. “The list thief used your missing laptop and left a fingerprint in doing so.”

A moment of inspiration hit Zophiel.

“Sir,” she turned to the SC, “the leaders of the Uprising.”

The SC’s brows furrowed, as he rumbled dangerously. “What of them?”

“Were any of them in Electronic Presents?”

“Why, yes, as a matter of fact, one of them was,” he replied. “His name was-”

 

ROOM 295, ELF BARRACKS #98
SLEIGH LAUNCH : T-MINUS 4h : 52m : 35s

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“Tinselcake! Open up, you miserable excuse for an elf!”

Hollyhouse Tinselcake cowered in the corner of her quarters as the SC’s voice boomed from outside. Chunks of gingerbread fell from the ceiling under the boss’ tender ministrations and the elf knew those big fists would soon be breaking apart something other than the candy around her front door.

She eyed the laptop as it sat on her bed. How had they tracked her down? Surely, she’d covered her tracks? Maybe… maybe if she destroyed the computer? Then, there’d be no evidence… She leaped forward and grabbed the red-white-striped device, turned toward the crackling fireplace and raised the laptop above her head.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Zophiel’s voice made Tinselcake jump. She span around, clutching the laptop to her chest, and cowered once again as the figure in her room blasted out a flare of light, her arms outstretched. She was floating near the ceiling, looking down on the hapless elf cleaning lady. The angels’ wings spread out, covering almost the entire ceiling and her face shone so brightly, her features were actually invisible.

Instinctively, the elf pulled out the Bauble 350, cocked it and pointed it at the angel.

 

“Stay… stay back…!” the elf shuddered at the situation she now found herself in. The thuds on the door and the SC’s roaring just seemed to get louder. “I didn’t do anything! I… I was just checking the List…!”

 

“The SC has already checked it,” Zophiel boomed. “Twice.” 

Zophiel had employed her Heavenly Host voice to add to her Blinding Light of Heaven. Better to bring this to a close as quickly as possible. Shock and awe was better than the messy alternative.

“You don’t want to do this,” the angel continued. “Please repent. Let me bring you in. I can stand up for you with the SC. But if he breaks down that door before you and I reach an understanding… things will be much worse for you. It’s not his preferred method of entering a room and it will make him all the more angry-”

“How did you find me? I thought McFluffy’s laptop was-”

“Well, that was the problem,” said Zophiel, “you aren’t a computer expert, so you couldn’t cover your tracks. You just used the small amount of knowledge you picked up from your husband, didn’t you? Before he died.”

“You mean before that motherstocker Santa Claus killed him!” Tinselcake yelled.

“And you wanted revenge for his execution. I understand,” said Zophiel as she turned the lights down and lowered herself to the floor. “I was clocked on during most of the Old Testament. Sodom and Gamorrah. Babel. Two tours of Jericho. I know a thing or two about vengeance.” Her voice was more human now, the choral-acoustics, turned off. Intimidation was over, now it was about empathising.

 

“You were angry at having to celebrate another Christmas without Mr. Tinselcake. You had a rudimentary knowledge of how the List was stored in the system and decided to take matters into your own hands. Am I right?”

The elf’s gun wavered as the fire of her fear and anger began to cool into regret and sadness. Zophiel stepped closer.

“You took the list and deleted the original. Revenge, right? Against the SC.”

“Not just that,” said Tinselcake. “I don’t get Christmases anymore. Why should anyone else?”

“I get it,” Zophiel said softly, taking the gun from the elf’s hand. “But Christmas is important to this planet. Really important. The presents are the visible surface but they represent something deeper that these people really need to keep practicing. Giving, compassion, love. It brings them together. They need Christmas. Take it from someone who was there at the first one.”

“You… you were…?”

 

Zophiel shrugged and smiled. “Shepard duty, not the Kings. But… I don’t know, I think that was the nicer assignment. Those guys didn’t have fancy presents to bring so they just brought themselves. But people now…” Zophiel nodded at the laptop, “they need this. Please?”

Zophiel reached out and slowly, but with a final push of conviction, Tinselcake handed over the laptop just as the front door came through in an explosion of gingerbread and jelly tots.

The SC came barrelling through, several NPPD officers right behind him, Candycane CC20 assault rifles locked and loaded. Miffles squeezed through just underneath all the masculine chaos.

“Elf Tinselcake,” the Saint bellowed, “prepare to be-”

Blinding light and choral singing interrupted the jolly fat man in his tracks. “Please stand down, Your Highness. This elf has suffered enough.”

“But she killed McFluffy!”

“No, sir, Mrs. Tinselcake forced him at gunpoint to log on and steal the list. She took the laptop but left him alive. Sugarplumb McFluffy killed himself, from the shame of what he had done. And… if I may say so… fear of what his boss would do to him when he found out.”

“Elves need a strong hand,” the SC argued.

“It is not my place to say, Your Highness,” said Zophiel, extinguishing her Heavenly Light, “but perhaps everything here from McFluffy’s suicide to the Tinselcake tragedy to the Uprising itself may have been avoided with a more… compassionate approach?”

The SC held out a meaty hand to the angel and she put the laptop into it. He handed it off to Sandals who immediately ran off back to the workshop to get the launch back underway.

“You are correct, angel,” the SC said, his eyes never moving from hers. “It is not your place.” He turned his murderous gaze on the cowering elf behind Zophiel.

And then he turned and left. 

 

The NPPD officers followed their boss, holstering their weapons. The flashing lights of the NPPD sleighs were eventually extinguished and Room 295 was plunged back into gloomy silence. Only Miffles remained with Zophiel and the apparently pardoned cleaning lady.

“What…” Mrs. Tinselcake stammered, “...what’s happening? Aren’t I being taken away..?”

“I think the Santa Claus just felt a little of the festive spirit,” Zophiel smiled. “Got to be a Christmas miracle, right?”

Miffles impressively hid a wide beam of a smile behind a taciturn and serious face. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, gaffer. Our marketing department confirms that the Santa Claus is the jolliest man alive.”

Zophiel shook her head and hid her own smile - a fond one - for her elf assistant. She turned to Tinselcake, stuck in a half-world of surviving a harsh, lethal punishment and still being in the same painful landscape she had occupied in the first place.

Zophiel sighed. She didn’t make a habit of this but it was Christmas. And she was an angel, after all. A Christmas angel, it appeared. And she had a couple of hours before she had to head back upstairs.

“Come on, then,” she held a hand out to Mrs. Tinselcake. “Apparently, there are few things more glorious or good for the soul than taking a flight with an angel.”

Through her tears, Mrs. Tinselcake smiled.
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THE END

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