Hugh J. O'Donnell

It wasn’t enough anymore to be the best, now racers had to have a gimmick, too.
He’d given his whole life to the sport and he thought he’d have earned a bit more respect by now. Although if he were being honest, he never expected to be driving with gray hair, much less a full white beard.
But as he put on his suit and looked over the cherry-red paint jobon the finished rocket car, he couldn’t help but feel ridiculous.
“Well, let’s give the kids a show.” He practiced the laugh as he secured his helmet.
“Ho. Ho. Ho.”

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It was the last week of December, a soft place in time between one year and the next. She walked through empty streets, the air slightly foggy from the melting snow, the pavement slushy.
As she walked alone, she meditated on her past and her future.
It was an artificial construct, of course. Just the arbitrary fall of holidays on a calendar creating a lull. But she felt that the world was suddenly full of possibilities. It was as though she could disappear in that fog and emerge somewhere else, to start again.
So that is exactly what she did.

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She is the youngest of the group, practically still alive. The others rarely give her the use of the shell, but some business cannot be done remotely, and she still has flesh on her skull.
Thus, she will be leaving the collective. The other heads, still connected to the frame with cables and struts, hover and fuss over her like aunties around a debutante, giving instructions.
Then, she is back out in the world, her mechanical suit swathed in layers enough to disguise what she is.
She will complete her mission, and then she will return home to her family.

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A light in the corner of the goggles, the holographic equivalent of a tug on his sleeve. He looked down and found himself standing next to a little girl pulled from some historical simulation. She looked up at him with wide, tear filled eyes. “What will become of me?”
Inside the compound, the Walkers were destroying everything they could. But he’d gotten out with the core processor, and there were backups all over the system. He sighed.
“You’ll be fine, as long as I don’t get caught. Now let’s move.” He shouldered the backpack and turned away, dismissing the hologram.

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The elves suffered under Santa’s harsh rule. They tried everything to make their long, laborious lives bearable, but he thwarted them with his magic at every turn.
They tried to form a union, but he sowed fear and dissent among their ranks whenever they tried to improve conditions, and installed his puppets in leadership positions. Things only became worse.
Some tried to run away, or to make the humans aware of their plight, but the isolation of the workshop in the arctic wastes doomed every attempt to disaster.
In the end, the elves built their own Santa, and replaced him.

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“Who’s next on the list?” He ask his assistant. They told him.
“Really?” He asked. “She’s been good all year?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, let’s get to it then.” Santa wheeled his sleigh around and headed for the Antarctic lair of the ancient dragon Meagestrix the Inferno.
Santa slid quickly and quietly down a crack in the mountain, carrying a wrapped parcel on his back. He shot back up a moment later, running for the sleigh as fast as he could. The dragon was right behind him, belching smoke and flames, but her new set of humane adventurer traps was delivered.

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The old man sits at his workbench, painting a wooden soldier. It is fine work, flawlessly carved, like the legions before it. Just like the one he will make next. He enjoyes his work. It’s more of a retirement, honestly. But he still remembers the old days.
He remembers thrones, and drinking halls, and hide boots crunching on snow. He remembers the smell of fear and the taste of hot blood.
He paints a bright red smile on the soldier’s face and set it aside to dry. Santa is happy in his new role, but still, you’d better watch out…

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Every year at Christmas, she received a card with no signature and no return address. She would briefly puzzle over the card and wonder who it was from before being distracted again by the holiday rush.
Until one year the cards stopped coming.
She spent all winter trying to figure out where the cards came from, and why they had stopped. None of her friends or relations knew anything about it, and as the next holiday season approached, she had no answer.
But that year, she picked a random address out of the phone book and sent them a card.

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