Carol for Another Christmas (5 page)

A low moan from the computer rose to a wailing cry that completely filled the room until she had to hold her hands over her ears to make it stop. At last, when she couldn't stand any more of it, the wailing did stop.

“Oh, Ssissss,” hissed the image of her brother's face, albeit in black and white. You'd think such a technical genius could have managed color, but then, knowing him and the way he thought old-time movies were so cool, he might have done it on purpose. It was beginning to break up, to dissolve into snow, which was what was making it hiss, she thought. “You're missssing the point . . . point . . . point.” The hiss was now accompanied by an echo and a blurring of Doug's snowy features.

“Doug! Don't you dare just leave me like this! You have some explaining to do!”

She touched the keyboard, thinking there must be some command that could clarify her brother's image and speech, but her fingers were still inches from the keys when a jolt of static electricity knocked her backward. It was then that she noticed that the whole room was filled with static snow, just like the computer screen, and while her clothing clung to her in pools and ripples and her nylons crackled, the hairs on her skin and head stood straight up, tingling and quivering with the charge.

“Moni, I haven't got long,” the image said, resolving again. “And neither have you. You need to pay attention. We've both always needed to pay attention. I am not a dream. I am not a problem with your monitor. I am not a problem with your reception. Please do not attempt to adjust your terminal again. I am a ghost, Sis.” At least he had stopped hissing.

“The ghost in the machine, I presume?” she asked tartly.

He asked, a little annoyed at her denseness, which had been his usual tone when he was alive, “Where
else
would I haunt? Where else did I ever spend any time? I spent all my life turning my back on the world, looking into computers, and now it looks like I'm doomed to spend my afterlife inside a computer looking out at what I missed. Only problem is, of course, most places the computer doesn't offer much of a vantage point for all the things I'm supposed to have done, like enjoying Christmas and cherishing my loved ones.”

“Cherishing your loved ones? Give me a break! You never cared about anything except your project of the moment while you were alive, and you seemed perfectly happy. Why should you regret that, now that you're dead, for heaven's sake? Do they make you go through therapy when you die?”

“No, but you're stuck for all eternity with the choices you made in life. This is not just a phase I'm going through, being inside a computer. Except for this one time, I am doomed to haunt terminals. I give a whole new meaning to the term
vaporware
. I ride the Ethernet forever, the—er—man who never returned.” A deep sigh came through the computer like a gust of wind that rattled the vertical window blinds and blew Monica's hair straight back.

“Well, yes, fine, but why bring it up now? I have work to do, you know.”

“Because it's Christmas, and you shouldn't
be
working. You should be . . . um . . . rejoicing?”

“Oh, really? And what's what I do with Christmas got to do with you being dead and fouling up the business you left me by haunting valuable memory space?”

“Because, Sister
dearest
, Christmas has always been about second chances. And I'm here to give you yours, which will maybe give me mine. So I hope you'll pay attention and not blow it.”

“What do you mean ‘second chances'?”

“Did you think the kid in the manger was thought up by the heavenly merchandising department just to create a boom market in crèches and Chinese-made tinsel stars and treetop angels that say at programmable intervals, ‘Unto us a child is born!' I think not. I've learned a thing or two since I've been dead, and let me tell you, it's come as a shock to me. The deal is, that kid came to give the world a second chance, take it or leave it. Use it or lose it. No pain, no gain. And it's not just a churchy thing, Sis. It's about looking out for one another and paying attention to other people for reasons other than to see what they'll buy. I . . . uh . . . didn't get that for some reason.”

“But you were gifted! The gifted have an obligation to develop their gifts!”

“Oh, yeah, but it's how you use them that counts. You're supposed to give a little as well as take—”

“Now you really don't sound like yourself. Are you sure you haven't been hanging around with a lot of liberal New Age people since you died?”

“None of that stuff matters. Nobody asks if the group you hung out with was cool or not, just who you were, where you were when you were needed, and what you did. Rank doesn't have any privilege here. I always had to make things work
my
way when I was alive. I only interfaced with people when I was in charge, when I was running things. And now I can't run anything, except just this one last time, my first Christmas away from home, as it were, my second chance to help you change.”

“This is way creepy, Douglas. I don't want to change . . . and I don't understand why you're behaving this way or why you're preaching at
me
for heaven's sake, or why you're in black and white and talking in that hollow B-grade horror movie voice.”

“It's a ghost thing, okay? Let's just say the Unitarians do not have all the answers. Moni, Sis, listen to me before you've wasted your entire life trying to stay safe by scaring everyone else to pieces. Before you waste it keeping score and making sure you always have as much as the next guy—as you think I did. I hate to tell you this, Moni, but I had zip and you currently have zip and there is an awful lot to be had that you're not even going for.”

“Now you sound like that silly purple dinosaur.”

“Maybe so, but you're the one in danger of becoming extinct. Look, it's Christmas. Did we ever once have Christmas together after I left home?”

“We didn't have time.”

“Bull! You're my only sister, my last living relative. You raised me, and yet we never really were together. I was building my launchpad for cyberspace and you were gouging taxes out of terrified people.”

“My job supported your precious research, mister, and don't you dare think being dead is any excuse for criticizing me!”

But the ghost's wail rose above her until she swallowed the rest of what she would have said.

“I'm not. I can't criticize anyone. I chewed up employees and spit them out. Because it was tax deductible, and convenient, I built a fancy work environment no one looked at because they all had their heads as far up their derrieres as I did. I gave to charity because it was deductible, too, and when it wasn't anymore, I stopped giving. All the giving I ever did was because of some tax break I'd get!”

“Then I wish you'd given more, too,” Monica sniffed, “because you've left this business in quite a financial snarl.”

The ghost heaved a deep, sad sigh, like a wind trying to blow through the boughs of ancient forest and finding only stumps.

Doug's face, however, was the same dead-still mask of static snow and blackness as he said, mumbling as he used to when trying to understand some arcane bit of programming, “So what? You're a couple mil short of enough to make the next multimillion-dollar deal? I used to think I was in deep financial doo-doo when that happened, too, and I never thought how many people my petty cash would feed, how I could have put all the brainpower here to work trying to figure out how to make up for too much war, too much destruction, too little clean water, too few trees, too little food . . .” Though the face didn't change expression, she suddenly knew it was addressing her again, and the volume rose again. “I only thought about the next cool tech thing to do and how much money it would make for me so I could build the next cool thing.”

“You were a very busy man, and besides, there's government agencies to see to that—”

At this, the screen broke up again and the electricity popped all around her for a frighteningly long time before Doug's ghost re-formed and he said, “More BS. The phrase ‘Life is not a dress rehearsal' is not just a bumper sticker, Sister dear. I had to go through a lot to arrange this. I've been here in this machine watching you screw things up, screw your life up, ever since I died, but now is the only time you'll ever see me. I can't stay and argue with you. Why should I? We never listened to each other, anyway. But I did arrange for someone to come who's had a little experience at this kind of thing. Someone who's maybe a little more on your—pardon the expression—wavelength than I ever was. The spirit debuts at one, with encores at two and three. Be there and be afraid, Monica. Be very afraid.”

“Doug, Doug, I'm trying to get a product ready for demo here. You understand that. Can't your friend just tell me what he wants the first time and get it over with? I'm afraid your appearance may be seriously screwing up the computers.”

“Oooooooh, Monica, I knew you'd react that way. I knew you'd try to cop out and say, ‘Oh, it was only a dream,' or something else lame like that. Hence the three-time thing, so even you can't possibly ignore it.” The ghost moaned again, suddenly sending shocks popping throughout the static-filled room. “Heads up, Sis. It's now or later, and you're really not going to like later . . .”

And with that, the face broke up once more and the static snow swirled into a vortex, sucking in the snow from all over the room, causing the microwave to short out, the silverware to bounce on the table, and the trade magazines to fly around the room like ghosts themselves. Monica cowered away from it, huddling into a little ball on the sofa, the cushion held in front of her knees, until the room had more or less returned to normal.

Six

Monica awoke from her nap on the couch and looked around at the room. Every book was in place, the sports news was on the television, and the icon for Get a Life was on the computer screen. “Stress,” she said to herself, her dream still vivid. “I must be more stressed-out than I thought. After we finish this project, I'll fire all those geniuses and hire people loyal to me. Then it'll be better.”

She sat down at the computer station again, albeit somewhat edgily, but nothing crackled, no snow appeared on the high-resolution screen, and she thought maybe she'd have beginner's luck with this and crack the problem with something simple that hadn't occured to her brilliant employees.

It would have to be something very simple. She had been trying to learn programming, but it made very little sense to her. Besides, though it was good to understand what it was your help did, she was sure, it seemed silly to have a metaphorical watchdog and bark herself.

The program just sat on the screen in front of her and burped at the same place every time, shortly after it was booted up. Usually the screen simply locked up and nothing would move without another hard boot.

This time, when she flipped the switch back on, the Get a Life icon appeared briefly but instead of burping was followed by a screenful of snow. The knuckles of one trembling hand were at her teeth while her other hand reached for the switch when suddenly the snow was replaced with a clear, full-color, almost three-dimensional image of an elderly man in old-fashioned dress. He looked as if he were caught in the headlights of a truck.

Seven

Ebenezer Scrooge, the word “humbug” still droning through his mind, opened his eyes. A face, young and grinning, flashed before him and disappeared. Suddenly he was looking all at once at dozens, hundreds, of other faces. At least as many as he would once have met near his own offices in London.

Who on earth could these people be, and why did he get the impression that, though they seemed to be a crowd, they each seemed unaware of the other and looked at him as if he were a personal discovery. They were such strange faces, not the sort one saw in London every day, young men and women, no old people or children. Some of the young men could have been clerks from their pale and studious demeanors, but they were shabbily dressed for the occasion in what appeared to be their underwear. More alarming, the young women were in a similar state of semi-dress, one bearing the legend across her bosom, “The Grateful Dead.” So at least he was still among the deceased, it seemed.