Vignettes: Operation Bethlehem, Part I

Jaye always was a little obsessed with Christmas. Even when I first met her, 3 years back when the War was still looking like a totally one-sided massacre and the ANIMa was only a twinkle in my and Dana's eyes, she was hauling a fake Christmas tree three times her size out of a closet every year as soon as the first snow flew. She's the one who taught all the little kids to sing Christmas carols and told them the stories - not just the Jesus-in-a-manger ones, but Rudolph, Frosty, and all that stuff.

So I guess it didn't really surprise me when she came to me with the idea.
More...
"Ummmm.... Doc? I was wondering something. When we sealed the thingy in Lake Minnetonka... the like, gate kinda thing? That got rid of all the Nightmares around here, right?"

We'd only finally managed to do that a couple weeks ago, and neither Anita nor Rainy had made it back all right. It was a big win, but it didn't real feel like one to me. None the less, I nodded.

"Yeah, we think so. You haven't seen any signs on your recons, and nobody's had any of those dreams lately, either. But they're still out there. There are gates like that in bodies of water all over, we think. Probably only a matter of time before they come at us from Superior or Lake Michigan or somewhere. That's why I'm here, Jaye - I'm trying to get what Rainy sent us from their 'HQ' or whatever it was on the other side of the gate before we lost contact with her turned into a useful way of shutting them down for good. So is this really important?"

I knew immediately that I'd said the wrong thing. Jaye looked at her feet, and mumbled. "Nooooo.... I guess not. It's just..."

"Oh Jaye, I'm sorry. I've been at this all night and I'm crabby. I can make time for our youngest hero. What's up?"

"Doc.... I was wondering about Christmas. There's kids all over who don't even know that the Nightmares can lose! I know you said that we would try to get Resistances started in some other places in the Spring, but right now it's winter, and they're all alone. I want to DO something. And I have this idea..."

"You do? What's all this have to do with Christmas, Jaye?"

"I was thinking that while the Nightmares can't mess with us so easy on the other side, maybe I could do something to let the kids ...all of them... know that help is coming soon. Remember what Rainy did? How we all heard her voice at the end? What if we could... well, like the Star of Bethlehem. Or maybe more like Santa Claus."

"I'm not following you. Rainy's telepathic signal was probably only possible because she was standing right in that gate - which I think must have been kind of a telepathic-based thing in a way. A gate between their dreams and ours. I'm not going to let our only duty-ready pilot jump into one of those, even assuming we knew where to find another one, or that it wouldn't be surrounded by hostile Nightmares."

"No, no. Not like that. I have another way to let them know. Anita's Materializer. That lets us bring stuff from the dreamworld into the real world for a little while, right? And I can use it better than anyone. I just go up really, really high, somewhere everybody can see, and I Materialize it. My message."

Of course, I absolutely forbade her from doing it once she told me. The enemy would be on her like that, from everywhere. And the Materializer shouldn't even work. I had the math to prove it. Not that that had stopped Anita and Jaye from using it already.

I should have known better than to think that this time, Jaye would follow orders. It's never been her strong suit.

TO BE CONTINUED...