Christmas with the Calvins

Chapter Sixty-Nine

As usual, Quintin was easy enough to find. Research and Development had apparently been put in charge of making the North Pole appear as authentically Canadian as possible. The head of the department was right in the center of town, just outside the school house, when Jess went looking for him. She approached him casually. It seemed important that everyone else think she was just having a conversation with her old friend.

"Hey Q!" She called out to him with a smile. Quintin looked over his shoulder and smiled himself.

"Hello Jess. You've just missed Curtis. He was telling me about a small fight you had in the kitchen."

"I wouldn't exactly call it a fight." Jess rolled her eyes. "Did he also tell you that he and Dad invited Jack Frost to stay here through Christmas?"

"That's not exactly how he put it, no." Quintin frowned. "He said the Council ordered Frost to do community service." Jessica couldn't help but scoff.

"Is there any way I can steal you for few minutes? It won't take long." She promised. Quintin looked back at his team and watched. They were more than capable of handling their tasks without him stalking over them.

"Need a new jetpack to sneak away on?" He suggested with a smirk.

"Not quite." As they walked together to Quintin's office, Jess told her version of what had happened in the kitchen during to Council meeting. "So then when I went home to talk with Bernard..." Quintin stopped short, his hand hovering over his office doorknob.

"You talked to Bernard?" He was surprised.

"Curtis was being ridiculous, I didn't know who else to go to." She explained. "Don't get your hopes up."

"Whatever you say." Quintin shook his head, now twisting the doorknob. "But it seems to me that you're making progress. The North Pole's power couple will soon return to reclaim their rein."

"So dramatic." She rolled her eyes again. "Don't tell Judy, you'll just get her excited over nothing. Actually, you can't tell anyone at all. What I'm here for is sort of off the books."

"Why is it I'm always the first one you go to when it comes to "off the books" types of things?"

"This wasn't my idea. Bernard sent me." She said. The pair of friends were now safely inside Quintin's office. Jess made sure they were completely alone before continuing. "I know how this is going to sound and I'm sure what he mentioned to me isn't even active anymore, but I can't let Frost take this place down the way Toy Santa did a few years ago."

"I'll try and help if I can, what does our good friend Bernard suggest?" He asked.

"He told me to mention an Operation Secret Santa. He said you would be able to modify it for Frost." Jess explained. "I don't know if any of that means anything to you."

"No, it does." Quintin motioned for Jessica to follow him as he led the way out of the office. "Who else have you talked to about this?"

"No one." She promised, following him down a narrow corridor in the back of R&D.

"You were right, this has to stay off the books." Quintin took a sharp left turn into another hallway. This one was so narrow the two of them could not walk shoulder to shoulder. At the end of the hall there was a tall thin door with no knob, just a thumbprint reader. Quintin pressed his thumb against the pad of the reader and the door swung open.

Jess and Quintin stepped inside what looked like an office. There were two desks pressed side by side together in the center of the room. The walls were lined with bookcases and filing drawers. It looked frozen in time, like nothing had been touched since it had been put in here.

"Bernard and I built this hundreds of years ago." Quintin told her as he shut the door behind them. "In here you'll find records of every Santa there ever was. There's also information about their Mrs. Claus, their families, where they are now and any other relevant information. I've seen your file, it's interesting."

"But what exactly is Operation Secret Santa?"

"It's a protocol we developed to stop any future Santa from going rogue on us. I think I know what He meant when he said he wanted to modify it for Jack Frost." Quintin walked over to one of the desks and opened the top drawer. From the drawer, he removed a file and handed it to Jess.

"This is like a surveillance system? That's it? Then why does everything have to be so...secretive?" Jess asked looking up from the file.

"It's simple. Let's say your father is our S.S. target. If we set up surveillance around the North Pole to try and prove that he's a bad Santa, well if you or Charlie knew about it you would make sure he would be on his best behavior around any of the surveillance equipment, wouldn't you?" Quintin asked.

"I suppose we would. I guess the same could be said of any elf that a Santa made a power play at. Like if he promised...I don't know the kitchen elves a large kitchen or something for cooperating with him."

"Exactly. The less people who know about Operation Secret Santa, the more authentic the results will be." Quintin nodded. "Only in this case, we'll be monitoring Jack Frost instead of your father. Leave the details to me, I'll tweak the plans and I'll let you know when everything is ready. For now its important that you act naturally and don't say anything to Curtis or Santa."

"Cross my heart and hope to die, Q. Maybe this year we'll save Christmas before it even has a chance to go wrong."