Chronos' Christmas

too.”

  “I’ll go,” said the one who’d been doing all the talking so far.

  “Good. Ceep, has Deemi responded to my message about the new arrivals?”

  “Yes. He says that if you want to take Christmas this year, you should keep them both. You need all the help you can get.”

  I ignored the message. When I first came to Daycare, I arrived at Deemi’s unit. He taught me everything he knew about getting Christmas. Together, Deemi and I used to be on the same team, we were invincible. Every year, Christmas was ours. But when he started making his own rules, I left his unit.

  I looked over at Geebo, and he seemed to have forgotten the new kids and was completely absorbed with his tinkering. I waved over the kid that had volunteered, and he followed me to the exit.

  “Except for Deemi, Geebo and I are the oldest at Daycare,” I explained to him. “Deemi’s eleven, the oldest and biggest kid Daycare’s ever had. He’d never been killed before I took over this unit, but I’ve killed him three times.” I looked him straight in the eye. “And I plan to kill him and whoever gets in the way of me and Christmas.” He just looked up at me with an innocent and shy expression. I told him how to et to Deemi’s unit, and said that he should follow my directions exactly. If he wandered dawdled there was a good chance he’d be killed by one of the many traps which both units had spent the rest of the year setting up. I watched him walk down the stairs to the sidewalk. He stopped and looked up at me.

  “Bye.” He turned and never looked back. I really hoped he made it to Deemi’s, and I hoped Deemi liked him. At least this kid wasn’t a girl. One of the rules Deemi had decided on, while I was still with him, was no girls. Once, he was sent a girl, and he killed her himself. What a waste. He never even tried to use any of her abilities for Christmas. Every time Ceep restored her, Deemi’d just kill her again until after the fourth time Ceep never brought her back. No one came back to Daycare after the fourth death. I thought it was really a shame; I felt sorry for the girl. No one wants to leave Daycare. I’ve never traded a girl to Deemi’s unit, and I don’t think Ceep’s ever sent him another one.

  When the new replacement was out of sight, I looked up at the light dome high overhead. It was the ceiling to the walls that enclosed the one and half square kilometres of Daycare. Ceep had the overcast filters up.

  I went back to the activity room, and my knee started aching. I’d been killed three times, twice by Deemi, and my knee hadn’t been repaired properly. It usually started bothering me around this time, when I was worrying about Christmas. Ceep said there was nothing the matter with it, but I knew he had to be wrong.

  When I walked into the activity room, I saw Geebo watching the remaining kid, who was standing on a stool and halfway inside Ceep. The vidscreen light was out and the screen was off and on the floor. Geebo gave me a worried look, but the kid kept working. “Ceep, are you still there?” It made me nervous, seeing him in pieces on the floor.

  “I’m here, Chronos,” he answered. He sounded different. His voice was the same, but there was something different. By this time the blond kid was looking at me. He smiled.

  “Geebo, what’s he doing? You know Ceep’s off limits. We all know that,” I said. Snuks sat in the corner, her face painted white. She was about to apply more colors. At least someone was getting ready for Christmas.

  “I gave the new kid a name,” Snuks said, “Teb.”

  “Ceep asked Teb to do this,” Geebo said.

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “Fixth him,” Snuks answered. She went back to coloring her face. Teb still worked on Ceep.

  “Is that true, Ceep?” I asked, half expecting him not to answer.

  “Yes, Chronos.”

  “But why Teb? Why not Geebo? You know how he loves to do that kind of thing. And why now with only one hour until Christmas? We’ve got to be ready. Deemi will be ready.”

  “Geebo wasn’t bred for this kind of job, Chronos. I couldn’t let him work on me.”

  I recalled the onetime Geebo had attempted to tinker with Ceep. Geebo hadn’t been here too long, and Ceep had zapped him so badly that I thought he’d been killed for sure, but he hadn’t

  “Geebo would have changed me. He would have made me something more – or less.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Geebo protested.

  “Yes, you would have. Don’t feel bad, Geebo. That is your specialty. It has become more and more obvious. Your creativity is greatly needed and desired.”

  Ceep was absolutely right. Geebo’s genius had come in handy more than once and would be greatly desired in less than an hour.

  “Besides,” Ceep continued, “Geebo’s hands are too large for this procedure. I could not be sure the Teb or the other replacement would survive this Christimas, and this adjustment could not wait much longer. Do not worry about being prepared for Christmas. You are prepared.”

  By the time Ceep had finished explaining, Teb had completed what he was doing, and Geebo replaced the vidscreen and turned it back on. We always kept the vidscreen on. That way it felt like Ceep was really there.

  “Teb, have you looked at Ceep’s Christmas catalogues and given him you list?” I asked. His blond head nodded. It was strange talking to him when I felt like I had just said goodbye to him a moment earlier. “Snuks will help outfit you. Geebo and I have to get ready, too. Remember, it’s only fifteen minutes to Christmas.” Snuks looked nervous. I was nervous. But Geebo didn’t look worried at all. “We’ve got fifteen blocks to cover by tomorrow, but then so does Deemi,” I said.

  We gathered on the concrete stairs outside of our unit. We looked at each other, admiring the faces we had painted on ourselves. Geebo and I snickered at Teb. He’d allowed Snuks to apply his paint to him, and she’d given him a clown’s face, just like the ones she’d seen in Ceep’s catalogues. Teb’s nose and mouth were red, and his eyebrows arched into the blond bangs on his forehead. He looked like he’d been surprised by Deemi himself. He didn’t seem to mind us laughing at him. Snuks wore a tight, black, stretchy outfit. Her hair was tied back and fastened down with a thong that looped around her neck.

  “Watch this,” Geebo said. He slipped off something that he had slung over his shoulder, and then moved down the stairs and away from us. It was a flat chrome disc tied to the end of a plastic string. He held it out to one side. With a few twists of his wrist he had the disc spinning, and then he released it. Slicing through the air, the silver disc cut two branches from nearby bush before it was stopped by a clump of twigs. Not until it had become lodged did we realize that the razor-disc was still attached to the string Geebo held. He flicked the string; the disc dislodged and spinning wildly, it came back to him, stopping just short of his hand. He grinned, looking delighted with himself.

  Geebo had other gadgets hooked to his belt. I recognized his grease gun and a few other things. Snuks wore her pellet shooter around her neck like a necklace. She blew through it a couple of times then tucked it down the front of her top. A small pouch filled with pellets hung by her hip. When she was ready, she slipped her thumb into her mouth and sat on the top step.

  I was ready too, but I wasn’t sure about Teb. I had no idea what his capabilities were. He probably wouldn’t make it all the way through Christmas, but I was going to make sure we got as much use out of him as possible, at least until Deemi or one of his gang got him.

  “Message from Deemi,” Ceep’s voice came through the com by the door.

  “I’ll come inside to take it.” I didn’t want to take Deemi’s message while the others were listening. It might disturb them.

  I left Geebo bragging to Teb about some gadget he’d created and wlaked into the silent activity room. Ceep was quiet.

  Ceep was quiet!

  That was it. Teb had fixed Ceep so that he no longer made the hissing sound we’d named him after. I stood in the silence and wondered what Deemi could possibly have to say
just before Christmas. I decided that it was probably some kind of trick and was ready to walk back outside when Ceep spoke.

  “Shall I communicate Deemi’s message?” he asked.

  “No.” I really didn’t want to hear it.”

  “I would like to talk with you before you go.”

  “There’s not much time, Ceep.” I felt uncomfortable.”

  “I have always considered your development, and the others at Daycare, my most important task, but until now, the way your time has been spent here has never been completely under my control.”

  “You’ve done everything for us,” I said, wondering what Ceep was getting at.

  “No. The dults neglected Daycare and were afraid of the children that were coming out of here because the children were violent. Conditions here demand that you be tough. I do what I can to ensure that you will survive once you leave here. The dults don’t know how to stop Daycare, and at one time hoped it would break down completely - until they saw how they could take advantage of the children. They need you to defend them from the Offworlders. The dults introduced Christmas to Daycare to ensure the violence would continue – a motivating agent. They’ve been preparing you, the others and many before you to fight for them, to die for them –“

  “But you won’t let us die.”

  “You will be beyond my range once you leave Daycare,” he said.

  I felt cold.

  “The