Christmas Story: In Search of St Nicholas by Strange Quark

Thank you Strange Quark for entering the Fiction Contest. Here is their entry...

(By Dan Peyton)
Over the bleak, cold arctic north a large BADGE landing craft buzzed through the gray skies. Gliding next to it was the stone hero Gargoyle, keenly watching the white land below.

Nova sat in the command seat of this large craft while his trusty robots managed the controls. He touched a comm device attached to his ear, “Anything yet, Gar?”

Gar answered, “Just snow. I...WATCH OUT!”

The proximity alarm went off and the whole craft lurched to the side as something slammed into them. The whole craft spun out of control, the three robots on the bridge rolled about like toys in a storm while Nova kept his firm grip on the command chair.

Nova looked out the front windows as they fell out of the sky and slammed into the ground. Waves of white powder spewed from either side of the ship as they plowed across the frozen north. After the sliding came to a stop, Nova shoved the emergency exit open and jumped out.

Gar landed next to him, "Sir, look!"
A demon approached,“Ah, Director Nova. It’s been a while.”

“What is it this time, Krampus? You and I both know you’re unable to get into Santa’s palace.”

Krampus resembled a man with shaggy hair all over his body, long demonic horns on his head, a long tail, and goat-like legs. He smiled at Nova with those fangs of his, “True, I could never get into that place. But, things have changed.”
“What are you talking about?”

Krampus answers, “These Morphons are spectacular little blessings, now aren’t they? Some humans have been turned almost into gods with them, and some into demons...depends on what they do with them I suppose. I, already being nearly a god myself, found them to be most delightful.”

Nova growled, “What have you done?”

“What I was always meant to do, punish the nasty little brats of this world. And with Santa out of my way, I think I can do my job unhindered. I think I will go eat at least ten thousand children, for starters. I believe that should make up for the lost years with Santa holding me back. Then, who knows? Maybe I’ll eat a few thousand more, all before Christmas.”

“No, you can’t,” Nova exclaimed.

Krampus laughed, “Who will stop me? Without Santa’s cheer, and morphons surging through my body, I am invulnerable. Now, I think I’ll start with a nice aged appetizer.” He jumped at Nova but was blindsided by a full-body slam from Gar. Without a second thought, Gar punched the demon hard enough to send him sprawling ten feet backward across the snow.

“Stay away, monster,” Gar commanded.

Krampus sat there, wiping a trickle of blood from his nose. “You’re an interesting foe. I’ll enjoy playing with you when I’m done. But, alas, I have other plans.” He vanished in a black puff of smoke, leaving only a cackle in its wake.

Nova let out a furious scoff, “This is serious.”
"What was that thing?" Gar asked.
"A demon who dines on little children. Since you can fly, head back to BADGE HQ and alert the leagues that Krampus must be defeated. I’ll stay here and call on any heroes who can help me find Santa and set this all straight. GO!”

Gar took to the skies while Nova headed back into his wrecked ship. He activated his comm, “Nova to all heroes, I need anyone who can help me find Santa, this is a matter of planetary emergency.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(By Strange Quark)

Quark's siesta was interrupted by Director Nova's voice crackling on the comm: "Nova to all heroes, I need anyone who can help me find Santa, this is a matter of planetary emergency..."

The screen on the comm flashed as details of the mission were transmitted from Nova.

"Uh? Nova again?" Quark muttered. He was too sober after the nap to think clearly.

Quickly, he took a swig of Rakly's 30-year-old single malt whiskey in order to regain mental clarity.

"I'm on it," he responded to Nova's call.

In an instant, he teleported himself to the North Pole, and to his surprise, found nothing whatsoever.

Not a trace of Santa anywhere to be found.

Quark scanned the electromagnetic field around him, as well as looked for unusual energy fields and aberrant particles.

He thought he sensed an anomalous Higgs boson decay into a bottom quark and then defy the second law of thermodynamics and reverted back into a Higgs boson - something not only highly improbable but virtually impossible.

Déjà vu.

A rift in the space-time continuum, concealing a field of quantum improbability.

At times like this, Quark was grateful that he's Strange. Indeed, he was possibly the Strangest Quark that ever emerged from Schrödinger's cat box.

All this weird improbable stuff is right up his alley.

He swapped place with one of his bottom quark cousins as it emerged from a Higgs boson and slipped through the rift into the field of quantum improbability.

Nothingness.

A familiar nothingness.

"I'm back in Schrödinger's box," he thought, recalling the way he emerged from this very box not too long ago.

"Meow!" A voice came out from nowhere.

Nowhere indeed. For this is all a fuzzy field of improbability, and everything (or nothing) here may, or may not, exist.

"Meow?" The voice was coming from an indeterminate point in space inside the box.

"Meow!" An old man slowly appeared, beard first, followed by eyes, flushed red cheeks, and hovered mid-air like a Cheshire cat, before the rest of his body materialised.

"St Nicholas!" Quark exclaimed.

"Meow?" The old man asked, confused.

"Why are you meowing like a cat? Do you not know who you are?"

The old man looked at Quark blankly. Clearly, he had no idea who - or what - he was.

"We have to get you out of here," Quark said. "Do you know what happened? How did you get here?"

St Nicholas remembered nothing.

Clearly, this was Krampus' doing. He had taken St Nicholas' memory of who he was, and placed him inside this field of quantum improbability. At this point he may or may not exist.

"If St Nicholas does not remember that he is Santa Claus, it would be disastrous for all the children of the world!" Quark thought. "His very existence is threatened!"

Quark tried to recall how he managed to collapse this improbability wave function and re-emerge from Schrödinger's box.

"Rats, I wish I had more whiskey..." Quark's memory - and sanity - started to fade as he regained his sobriety.

He realised that nothing worked as it should in an improbable dimension. No feat of particle manipulation would obey the laws of physics, for the existence of everything was uncertain in that paradoxical state.

"How do I convince a man that he is not a cat? That he needs to consciously will himself back into existence?" Quark wondered.

He tried to tell the story of a kind Bishop, who lived in Myra in the fourth century. Bishop Nicholas was a wealthy man who became a Saint through his acts of kindness and generosity, especially towards children and the poor.

The old man did not respond, although Quark thought he saw his eyes move at the mention of the word "children".

"Well, since I am an improbable being in an improbable dimension, I might as well try this..." Quark decided to muster every iota of improbability to create another rift in the space-time continuum, *within the existing rift itself*, and pull up events in St Nicholas' past in front of him, like tiny wormholes, to show him who he really is.

Then Quark took him through one of the wormholes to see the children of the world who were so poor they could not even afford to think of presents or of celebrating Christmas, for they were struggling just to live another day.

But as soon as St Nicholas saw the children, he started to fade away into nothingness again, and reappeared inside Schrödinger's box of uncertainty.

His existence was still stuck in the probability wave function created by Krampus.

However, the memories of the children remained inside his heart. His eyes were moist with tears and his soul cried for the poor, and the weak, and the innocent.

It was the Spirit of Christmas that moved him. The reason why Christ came to the world. To bring love and hope and salvation to all. It was a profoundly epiphanic realisation.

St Nicholas cried out, "I *will* to exist again!!!"

Suddenly, the wave function that trapped him collapsed, all the uncertainty and doubt came crashing down, vanishing into oblivion, and St Nicholas emerged from Schrödinger's box with good old Quarky.