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Doctor Nathan Stark was one of those people who tolerated Christmas more than liked it. Or that’s what everyone thought. He never commented on the decorations at GD or in Eureka, but his home was decorated inside from his attic study to his basement home lab. His home office is where he put up his tree because it couldn’t be seen from the street there. Multi-colored strings of lights adorned each room, but he kept his curtains closed against prying eyes. Even his master suite bathroom was decorated.
Not even his ex-wife knew his true feelings for Christmas. When they were still together, he let her decorate how she saw fit and hardly acknowledged it. His only public concession of the holiday was giving Christmas cards—with gift cards enclosed—to his closest friends and the prominent people he worked with.
That was why no one expected or suspected their best gifts to come from him.
Allison Blake walked into her office on December first to find a large box wrapped in Santa paper on her desk. She looked for a card and found one with only her name on it. She unwrapped the gift, puzzled about who it came from. She was even more puzzled about the giver when she discovered a large furry robe and matching slippers.
Allison spent half the day asking around to learn who gave her the perfect gift. No one confessed to it. No one knew who had given it to her. No one had seen anyone near her office. The security video revealed no one entering her office from the time she left until the time she returned. Even though that meant a potential security breach, she decided to let it go and enjoy her gift.
Vincent unlocked the doors of Café Diem on December second to find a sixty piece Hexiclad cookware set. The note said, “Vincent, happy cooking and Merry Christmas.”
Like Allison, Vincent checked his security video and asked all of his customers, but the giver couldn’t be identified. Vincent immediately dubbed the mystery person as Secret Santa.
Allison’s son, Kevin Blake received the next gift. It was a chalkboard, three boxes of chalk, and two erasers. Kevin bounced in excitement for nearly two hours and slept with a box of the chalk in his hand that night.
Allison redoubled her efforts to discover who the Secret Santa was as now the mystery gift giver had entered her home. Still, she found nothing.
On December fourth, Deputy Jo Lupo arrived to work to find a large gift on her desk. She unwrapped it and squealed at the Gel Gun Four-Sixty that was a non-lethal weapon designed for the control and apprehension of a large number of people at once.
Jo didn’t bother to wonder who gave her the gun, but Sheriff Jack Carter got curious fast because the Gelly, as he called it, had just gone into production the week before. Only certain military and GD employees had access to it.
Jack immediately called Stark.
“Nathan Stark.”
“Stark, it’s Carter. I need you to check your inventory on the Gelly gun.”
“The what?”
“The Gelly gun. That new gun that was just approved and sent into production. Our Secret Santa decided Lupo has been a good girl this year and gave her one as a gift.”
“Are you talking about the Gel Gun Four-Sixty?”
“Not that coherently, but yes. Are you missing one?”
“No one should be able to walk out of GD with one of those. Are you sure that’s what it is?”
“Considering I had to listen to Taggart complain for a week that the testing of it screwed up his robotic geese, yes, I’m sure.”
“I’ll look into it. And, Carter, don’t let Lupo shoot anyone with it yet.”
“That’s the plan.”
When Zoe Carter got to school on December fifth, there was a gift waiting in her locker. She looked around to see if anyone was watching her for her reaction, but hardly anyone was in the hall, and they were all digging in their own lockers.
Zoe opened the gift to find a college level robotics kit, the robot in the shape of a dog. Zoe had been considering looking into robotics but hadn’t committed enough to acquire a kit. Now she didn’t have to worry about it. She was thrilled.
Jack was, again, suspicious. Someone had gotten into Tesla School, the most secure school in the United States due to the chemicals and mechanical parts stored there and used by the students, and left a gift for someone close to him. He called Stark.
Nathan answered the phone sarcastically, “What can I do for you, Carter? Did another Gel Gun show up on Lupo’s desk?”
“No, a robotics kit showed up in my daughter’s locker at the most secure school in the country. What’s going on around here, Stark?”
Voice serious now, Stark said, “Someone broke into a Tesla locker?”
“Yes. This Secret Santa has to have pretty high clearance. Did you learn anything about the Gelly gun?”
“Not one Gel Gun Four-Sixty is missing from inventory. I thought you were making it up as a joke.”
“I’m not pulling any jokes on you. First the Gelly gun in the Sheriff’s Office, now a robotics kit at Tesla, are you sure you have no idea what’s going on?”
“I’ll look into it closer this time. Relax, Carter, nothing’s been taken. It seems someone has the Christmas spirit.”
“Yeah, right. We’ll see if you’re still saying that when your house or office gets broken into.”
Five days and five gifts, and Carter was already making a federal case out of it, literally. Nathan pulled up his schedule of gifts and started rearranging it so that the sheriff would be the last to know about any of them.
Fargo was next. On December sixth, the young man found an envelope with a bow on it lying on his desk. He opened it to discover two event passes to the vampire slayer convention just before Christmas. Fargo was walking on air the rest of the day, and Carter had no idea about it.
On December seventh, Zane Donovan found an envelope with two tickets to a Bruce Springsteen concert.
On December eighth, Taggart opened his lab to find the CL_AI chip wrapped on his desk. The chip would allow him to give his geese AI personalities so they could gather the appropriate information and relay it through radio signals rather than returning to be downloaded and leaving again. They would also be able to self-diagnose to determine if returning to GD would be necessary for repair. Taggart was ecstatic.
Henry entered his garage on December ninth to find a large gift on his work counter. He opened it to discover a first edition of My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla printed in nineteen-nineteen. He was thrilled. He couldn’t wait to show Jack and Nathan. The thought that either had given him such a gift never crossed his mind.
Jack went home to the bunker after his shift was over on December tenth. He put away his gun and said, “SARAH, beer me.”
“Pouring now, Sheriff.”
Jack walked into the kitchen to get his beer and saw the present on the kitchen counter.
He asked, “SARAH, where did this come from?”
The AI replied, “I don’t know, Sheriff. It wasn’t there, and then it was.”
“Things don’t just appear out of thin air, SARAH. Run a diagnostic on your internal clock and see if someone hacked your system.”
“I ran full diagnostics as soon as my sensors picked up the presence of the package. I even contacted Doctor Fargo and requested he run diagnostics from GD. Neither of us found any indication that my systems have been tampered with.”
“If you have no record of this getting here, and there’s no record you’ve been tampered with, then how in the world did this get here?”
“Unknown, Sheriff. I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, SARAH.”
Jack went to the counter and set his beer down. He picked up the package and gently shook it. Finally, he tore the paper off and opened the box. He picked up a baseball and examined it. It was signed and dated Babe Ruth, 1937.
As much as Jack loved the ball, he took out his phone and dialed Stark.
“Secret Santa’s struck again.”
Nathan asked, “What now?”
“I found a baseball signed by Babe Ruth on my kitchen counter.”
Nathan said, “That sounds like a good thing to me, if you like baseball.”
“Stark, SARAH has no memory at all of how it got there. Someone had to have hacked her. That doesn’t worry you?”
“That someone can hack SARAH worries me very much. I’ll have Fargo run a diagnostic.”
“Both SARAH and Fargo have already run diagnostics with no evidence of tampering.”
“I’ll check her code myself. I still wouldn’t worry, Carter. It just seems like some moron taking unnecessary risks to make people happy at Christmas.”
“Or all of this is practice for something more nefarious.”
“Are you always so pessimistic?”
“In this town? Are you kidding me? Let me know what you find.”
Nathan spent his free time on December tenth altering his plans for the next ten days. As much as he loved people happening upon their gifts, he knew he was pushing Carter to the edge. He wouldn’t be surprised if the man went over his head to General Mansfield which would mean Nathan would have to come clean to the general.
Mansfield would not be pleased with him, but Nathan knew he could get away with spinning it as testing security systems in and around GD. He would say leaving the gifts seemed appropriate for the season.
So for the second round of gifts, Nathan anonymously hired a messenger service from outside Eureka. Everyone’s gift would be delivered to Café Diem and Vincent would see that they made it to the appropriate person.
Vincent’s gift arrived on December eleventh. The chef was positively hyper over his autographed cookbooks by Gordon Ramsey, Wolfgang Puck, and Christina Wilson.
Vincent presented Allison her gift after it was delivered on December twelfth. Allison was shocked to open the box to reveal a small bust of her late husband, Kevin’s father. She sat in tears right in the middle of the café.
Jack got his next present on December thirteenth. It was two tickets to a Dodgers game at Dodger Stadium in L.A. Jack was smiling like a little boy when he showed Zoe the tickets.
Kevin’s gift was one of two that didn’t fit the second pattern; it was delivered to Kevin at home on December fourteenth. Kevin spent all day working on the college level mathematical equation workbooks. The young man finished them before he went to bed.
Jo received her second gift at Café Diem on December fifteenth. She opened the box and, obviously, choked up. Closed it quickly after letting only Jack see the tickets to the ballet. She was walking on air the rest of the day.
Zane’s second gift broke the pattern. On December sixteenth, Zane woke, showered, and dressed. He opened his personal computer to check his calendar and discovered the newest RPG downloaded and ready to play. It hadn’t even been released to the public yet. Zane almost called in sick to work, but he wanted to show his game off to his coworkers.
December seventeenth was Taggart’s turn again. This time he received a new set of night vision goggles specifically manufactured for military use. He spent all day and night in the darkest woods around Eureka.
Henry was next on December eighteenth. When he opened his present to find a portrait of him and Kim, he couldn’t stop the tears that slid from his eyes. He said loud enough for the entire café to hear him, “I don’t know who gave me this but I thank you for more than just the portrait. I thank you for keeping her memory alive.” Henry went home to hang his gift.
Fargo was thrilled on December nineteenth to receive the complete Blu-Ray set of his favorite sci-fi series. He would never not be crazy about Sarah Michelle Gellar.
It was December twentieth when the last present was delivered. Zoe Carter was sitting at the counter when it was delivered to Vincent. Zoe took it in surprise and opened it. Inside the box were fifteen classic rock albums on vinyl. She couldn’t speak because she was so surprised and pleased.
Jack had been sitting beside Zoe through all this. A look came over his face, and a calm seemed to settle over his body. He smiled at his daughter as she regained her composure and began to rave about her gift.
Nathan sat wondering why he hadn’t thought of this in the first place. Having most of the gifts delivered to everyone at the same place made it much easier to watch their reactions via security video. Then he saw it. Jack Carter had figured it out. Damn. This had been so much fun until now. No one was supposed to know. He was the Secret Santa. Carter was going to blackmail him with this for months, if not all year.
Except he didn’t. Carter didn’t call or show up at his office that day or the next or the next. Global Dynamics closed on December twenty-third for the holiday and wouldn’t reopen until January third. Nathan had begun to think he’d gotten away with it. He should have known better.
Mid-morning on Christmas Day, there was a knock at Nathan’s door. Puzzled, he went to open it and saw all of Secret Santa’s recipients standing on his porch. He bowed his head for a moment. Then he looked up, stepped back, and waved them all in with a sweep of his arm.
He caught Jack by the arm and said, “I know you arranged this.”
Jack asked, “Me? Why would I do anything nice for you?”
“I was watching as Zoe opened her gift at Café Diem. I could tell the moment you figured it out.”
Jack said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Santa. I was just happy for my daughter.”
Zoe and Jo took care of lunch while Vincent cooked Christmas dinner. They ate, drank, and had a wonderful time together, the way it should be on Christmas day. Everyone thanked him for being such a great Secret Santa, but Nathan thought Jack Carter was a better Secret Santa than he could ever be.
One of the best parts of the day was seeing who got caught under the mistletoe and who caught them. When he was caught by Jack, Nathan expected a quick peck on the cheek. What he got was the kiss of a lifetime, dip and all.
Jack and Nathan handled Secret Santa together after that, especially after they were married two years later on Christmas Eve.