By Abigail Falanga
“Everything can be monetized,” said the businessman at the corner table. “Christmas is a case in point.”
The waiter didn’t want conversation. Now that he’d gotten close to famed investor Eb Scrooge, he had plans. He shifted his feet and asked again, “Can I get you anything else? Top off your water?”
“Hmm? No.” The businessman, thin, bony, and as gray as his old suit, raised his glass as if in a toast and gulped the last of the water. “Another Christmas Eve, another year gone by, and financial reports are even worse than this time last year. Maybe I should get in on this holiday bull—the decor people seem to do well enough by it.”
“If that will be all,” the waiter said, reaching for the plate with traces of juices running into the mustard, “then let me get this out of your way.”
Scrooge rose, swiped his watch at the payment node in the table, selecting the lowest possible tip option, and straightened his thin, old jacket. “I’ve been talking. Pay no attention. It’s the seventh anniversary of my business partner’s death, and I’ve been thinking about old times.”
“That was Jay Marley, right?” The waiter instantly wished he could bite back the words, and added quickly, “If you’re missing your partner, maybe you’ll dream about him. I mean, I’ve heard that people do that in therapy.”
Scrooge snorted and tapped the silver implant behind his ear. “I have this to ensure I don’t dream. Sleep Switch technology is worth the personal investment for that feature alone—besides the value of bringing it to a wider market.”
The waiter risked probing. “Isn’t that technology illegal?”
“Not illegal, just highly regulated.” The old man’s smile was tight and cruel. “And anything highly regulated is also highly lucrative, when handled correctly.”
The restaurant was emptying as late diners paid their bills and shuffled out into the bitterly cold night. It was bleak more than festive, and the only things evoking Christmas were lackluster old carols coming from the sound system and the glittery fake pine table decorations that had started the businessman’s screed. He looked closer at the waiter.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” he asked, wrapping a scarf around his thin, long throat.
“I used to work for Ebenezer Industries a couple of years ago.”
“Oh? Doing what?”
“Coding.”
“Ha! Come down in the world, haven’t you?” The businessman stalked toward the door with a chuckle, shooting back, “Not going to wish me a Merry Christmas?”
The waiter bit back several possible retorts before settling on, “You wouldn’t accept it, sir.”
“No, I wouldn’t. What use did anyone ever get from Christmas?”
With that and a blast of frigid wind, he was gone.
The waiter glared after him, hardly feeling the cold in the heat of his simmering rage, and muttered a choice invective. He clenched his jaw as he cleared the table brusquely, carried the dirty dishes back to dump in the kitchen, and headed toward an empty room in the back of the restaurant.
As he entered, Caroline looked up from the holographic tablet. “Done?”
“Yeah. He didn’t even notice the capsule in that bit of gristle in his steak.”
“Serves him right for always ordering the cheapest cut.” She half-smiled, then turned back to the hologram to input a few final commands. “He’ll have the worst sleep of his life. With luck, the nightmares will kill him. Ready?”
The waiter dropped into the seat beside her. “You should have heard him, Caroline. He doesn’t care whose life he ruins or how many people are driven mad with the Sleep Switch apps. It makes him money. That’s all that matters to him—regardless of where the money comes from.”
“Then let’s give him a taste of his own medicine.” Caroline slid the tablet toward him. “With Scrooge out of the way, our debts will lapse, and maybe we can actually have a merry Christmas.”
A merry Christmas. The words hung in the air, and the waiter hesitated for some reason he didn’t understand at first. Was it the way the cruel old businessman had looked almost sorry about Jay Marley? Or how he had almost seemed to want to be wished a merry Christmas?
“What if,” he said slowly, “we do something different instead?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if we give him Christmas?” He began making swift changes to the code. “Everything that Christmas means to him—everything it ought to mean. With a few tweaks to the Sleep Switch, I can make him dream everything all at once.”
“But what good will that do?” Caroline asked with a soft, half-giddy chuckle.
“I don’t know. Mercy, maybe? Or maybe a glimpse of something good for a change. Even he might need to see what a Merry Christmas really is.”
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