“Ohh no. I don't really have signatures.”
“Of course, you do. Everyone does. Including mistakes and corrections. I've been doing this for fifteen years. Not a lot gets past me except with you I've noticed things I've never seen before, along with the speed of your delivery. I didn't expect the wind shear software to be fixed for another week.”
He still wouldn't look up. Why?
“The others helped,” he said. “It wasn't just me.”
“Are you nervous around me? I know I'm your boss but I don't want nerves to be the case. I want you to be able to come to me with your creative thoughts and any problems.”
Finally, his eyelids lifted. “I guess I'm still so new here. I'm learning to fit in.”
His words sounded true but not confident. I had two other new employees hired a week ago. They were in more rudimentary positions, but I still checked in on them quite a bit their first week. They had shown very little sudden shyness. They were older than Fallon, so maybe that was the difference.
“I'm glad to hear it. Eat up. And talk to me a little about what you're working on right now since the wind shear software problem is solved.”
Suddenly, Fallon lit up. Not just his eyes, but his entire body seemed to glow. Between bites of his sandwich, he told me about time shifts and dimensional overlays. I had a PhD but these were concepts even I had a little trouble following. We used quantum physics in Santa’s navigation, so the terms weren't alien. But his ideas we're quite innovative and I couldn't wait to see his notes on some of the old programs Clea and Drake had him scanning.
I was fascinated. Entranced. When I asked him questions he was able to explain in terms that allowed me to understand. This young man was not only beyond me in thinking, but able to turn his ideas into workable theories. And this was only day three.
Before I knew it the lunch hour was over. I wanted to keep Fallon longer. To have him work alongside me so I could watch what he did and learn. But it was still early. He needed to be with the others in Control, make friends.
Over the next week, I watched him when he didn't know I was looking. The day of the flight test I brought my team back outside to watch and take notes. The sleigh had cameras and I made sure they were all on and that everyone could tune in to them on their tablets so they would continue to see even when I drove out of sight.
It was good that a storm was brewing. I needed to test in all conditions, most especially the worst.
I called out to the reindeer and we took off. I engaged the force field over the sleigh and the deer. Now we were encased in a bubble of warmth none the worse for wear. That didn't mean the sleigh wasn't still buffeted around by heavy gusts from all sides.
I turned on the speaker for direct contact with Drake and Clea. “Am I coming through.”
“Perfectly,” Clea replied.
“Does everyone hear me?”
“Yes,” came a chorus of replies. I thought I heard Fallon's voice in among them but couldn't be sure.
For the next few minutes, I put the reindeer through their paces. There were some complicated moves while testing various software. Each reindeer had an earpiece so they could hear the A.I. voice giving out information on temperature and wind speed. All of them had taken classes in navigation and could make quick decisions as a unit. Their beasts communicated in a unified psychic manner. It wasn't automatic. They had to learn to become in sync. Nothing about this job was simple. We were all required to work together.
I pushed them to their limits, asking them to go faster. It was all I could do. Past a certain point I did not have the magical talent Santa had. He was one of the rare immortal elves who inhabited this continuum. He used mind and matter to accomplish the impossible on Christmas Eve. No one knew exactly how. All we could do was make sure the software that accompanied him didn't fuck up.
A great amount of snow and hail hit the force field but none of us felt it, or the incredibly freezing temperatures as we went higher.
At one point I engaged the cloaking device, calling back to my team on radar to make sure the sleigh did not show up as even one tiny blip.
“You're invisible,” Drake reported.
We made some adjustments to the cloak with backup systems in place. We’d had a screw up two years ago and the sleigh had been tracked for ten seconds on military radar in the USA. That had been hair-raising. We went into overtime the following year to make sure those corrections were accurate and contained a backup plan.
Right now, everything was fine. But every year was a new review.
Voices started coming through all at once. “We’ve got a radar blip.”
I cursed under my breath. Why was this happening now? “Making adjustments.”
I brought up the cloak program. Everything looked normal as I checked each menu and default. One stood out. It had to do with light refraction. Everything was frozen to an off position.
I reported my findings. I stayed out for twenty more minutes. There were a few more minor hiccups. It didn’t matter if they were almost insignificant. Santa needed a perfect flight and I was going to give it to him.
When I landed, I hopped out of the sleigh and approached my team. The reindeer took the sleigh back inside the hangar where assistants waited to unharness them.
