Tevun-Krus #96 - A Very Merry CyberPunk Christmas

Smith & Jones - An Episode by @CarolinaC

Smith & Jones

This episode brought to you by CarolinaC

Snowflakes swirled in the neon light, and Jones blinked at Kris, uncomprehendingly. She had her arms around both Smith and Jones and was laughing. Laughing, laughing, and laughing, in a way that made Smith feel mildly concerned. Somewhere, far away, small bells jingled almost musically.

Dwarfed by the buildings that extended impossibly high into the sky, the lights of a passing hovercar momentarily illuminated our heroes, revealing:

— a dark-haired man sporting a monocle, albeit one that periodically had information stream across it in blocky, green text. This was Smith.

— a fair-haired man in a grey, wool coat, except that the wool was shot through with charcoal-coloured fibres of something that looked like graphite but was certainly not graphite. This was Jones.

— a tall woman with red-hair, wearing a black leather dress, an oddly petroleum-scented stole, and knee-high boots. This was Kris.

The sound of bells grew louder, accompanied by a low whine which also, very gradually, grew louder and higher pitched. As the hovercar's lights panned away into the never-darkness of the neon-bright city, Kris finally unhanded them. Her face looked a slight bit green, moreso than could be explained by the lighting.

"I don't think that popcorn suited her," Jones said.

"I think that stupid new portal is what made her sick," Smith retorted. "You remember!"

Jones cast his mind back to about ten minutes ago, when, having finally met - okay, seen - the Writers, they had spoken with, well, someone. Someone named 'Ooorah!' who had sent them through a portal to save the multiverse. A portal that had rippled like water within an orange border. Kris had often said that portal travel was harmless, but this portal had been different from all the portals they had travelled through before.

"I suppose you may be right," Jones said, looking doubtfully at Kris, who was now spining around in the falling snow with her arms out, like a child trying to make herself dizzy. "The sooner we figure out what we need to do here to save the multiverse, the better.

The sound of bells and the whine of an engine grew almost unbearably loud and a strange vehicle fell out of the sky and crashed onto the street beside them. Kris, already unbalaced by her spinning, ended up on her bottom, staring at the thing.

"Santa Claus!" Kris exclaimed.

Smith and Jones had to admit she was not wrong. The vehicle which had crash-landed practically at their feet was something like a sled in shape. Unlike the sleds Smith and Jones were familiar with, however, it was made of the same, grey material as reinforced Jones'coat, and had glass tubes running along its side. These tubes pulsed with red, green, and white light, neon-bright, that chased along the tubs like a manic, flowing candy cane.

At the front of the sled was neither a horse, nor a steam-powered mechanical reindeer, as might have been expected. Instead, there was a small, vaguely pyramidal object headed by a small, circular, bright red light. It floated at knee height, tugging gently at its tethers.

The sled and its flying companion had no bells at all; the constant sound of jingling emerged from two grates on the back, a sort of musical exhaust.

Most important, however, was the person in the sled. He was chubby, wore a white beard, and had a metal left arm which ended in a strange, sac-shaped protrusion. He was also dressed in shiny red pleather from head to toe, and a sequin-bespangled hat.