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Christmas Eve was upon the city of Detroit, and everyone seemed to have caught a case of the holiday spirit…except for Coda.
It wasn’t that he was trying to be a…what was the term…a hum-bug…but he was having difficulty quantifying what exactly the ‘holiday spirit’ was supposed to encapsulate. Emotions were such a fluctuating, impermanent thing. So easily changed from one moment to the next, and completely inconsistent from person to person. How humans and deviants kept any of it straight, Coda might not ever completely understand…and therein lay the impasse where he found himself tonight.
The anniversary of his activation day was coming up soon, as his brother and others had been cheerfully pointing out. He knew that among humans and many androids, the anniversary of a birthday, an activation day, a deviation day…these were milestones traditionally celebrated. But looking back on his first year of existence, he couldn’t easily identify much worth celebrating.
But those around him had been eagerly, almost belligerently cheerful as of late. It had only been just over a month since…everything happened…and they and the rest of the city had been slowly finding their way back to some semblance of normal, or at least finding their way to an understanding of what normal was going to look like after what had happened. Everyone appeared to have collectively agreed that the only way to remedy the imbalance of so many bad happenings was to exponentially increase their celebrations, their parties, their big smiles, colorful decorations, and loud singing of holiday songs.
It had quickly become too much for his newly discovered emotions to handle, and at the first opportunity, he had gracefully slipped away from them all for some time to himself. He, like his predecessor the RK800, had been equipped with top of the line facial recognition software and analytics that let him identify emotions and emotional reactions in humans. But being as emotions were so new and raw for him, the onslaught of conflicting feelings in the bodies around him had been overwhelming.
They were happy because it was the holidays, but they were sad because of the violence of the previous month. But they were determined to fight that sadness with happiness, but they were also upset because did that make their happiness not genuine? Then they were angry because recent events had left them feeling so helpless to the current circumstances, and then they were sad because they didn’t want to be angry during a traditionally joyful season.
And that was before the more expected emotional whiplash of the holidays.
It was a lot to process, and this year had been…long.
So Coda had ventured out into the city alone, with a fuzzy mission in mind of clearing his thoughts. At the very least, he wouldn’t be putting a damper on the others’ moods with his lack of holiday spirit.
Daylight had faded to a quiet evening over Detroit, and with that evening came the chill of the coming winter’s night. There was a cheerful bustle to anybody who found themselves out at this hour, bundled in their coats, hats, gloves, and scarves, hurrying to wrap up their errands before the night became late.
Street lamps glowed and colorful storefront lights continued to clamor for the attention of passersby who might be enticed by a last minute sale. Festive holiday decorations seem to cling to several public surfaces: lamp posts, mail drop off boxes, fountains, and the like. Wreaths hung on front doors and glittering Christmas trees filled home windows.
It was all very pleasing to look at, as well as to hear the gentle chime of music spilling out of open doorways or passing cars. All that was missing with the snow, to let the weary people of the city enjoy a classic snowy Christmas morning tomorrow. The previous week’s snowfall had been shoveled and scraped aside, and it had formed piles of dirty slush in the gutters and on the curbs…not exactly the shimmery white blanket that one imagined when thinking of the season.
He hadn’t gotten to see the snow fall last week. It had happened overnight, and he’d come out of his rest mode to find the ground already covered in it and the sky clear…He had felt a pang of disappointment that he hadn’t seen the airborne flurries and snowfall as it happened. A frivolous thing to be disappointed about, but he still was.
Coda continued to drift aimlessly down the sidewalks. He logged many, many steps, but they carried him no closer to clarity. His own probability algorithms had already reminded him just how fortunate that he was to be where he was now, but that somehow only made him feel worse. If things had turned out so fortunately for him, then why did he still feel this way?
With no destination set, he wandered until he came upon an outdoor skating rink that had been set up for the winter.
The people were sparser at this time of evening. People were spending their Christmas Eves indoors, with friends and family at parties, not out in the cold night at a skating rink. Well, most people. Besides himself, Coda idly noted a handful people milling around the icy rink. Three of which were a trio of clearly drunk individuals, giggling and carrying on at one corner of the ice. Two others appeared to be on a date, with one man romantically attempting to teach the other how to skate. His date, however, was clinging to the three foot wall that encircled the rink and taking awkward baby steps and doing his best not to fall and look foolish in front of the other.
The last skater on the rink was there alone, and with an illogical sense of kinship about that, Coda’s attention focused more on her. Unlike the giggling drunks or the shuffling lovers, she was skating confidently and evenly, sweeping around the rink in long strides. Her movements were surefooted and purposeful, as she skated out in a long arc, then made a short leap and artistically spun around, extending her arms and looking skyward. Also, instead of being bundled in heavy coats and wearing inflexible jeans, she was outfitted in winter athletic wear more conducive to skating.
This was clearly some kind of routine that she was practicing, and Coda watched her run through a number of tricks, landing all of them. There was something comforting about the precision of it, watching someone accomplish the task that they set out to do and watching them do it well.
Well, it was comforting until she reached the double axel segment of her routine. The woman pushed strongly off one foot, already twisting as soon as she was airborne. She tucked in her arms and made one twist. Even without preconstruction, Coda could see that her timing was off, and she only made it halfway through her second twist when she landed. Her skate wobbled and skidded out from under her, and she wiped out on the ice.
Coda startled in concern as she slid to a stop and rolled up onto her seat. Her left side was covered in icy dust, and she looked unhappy.
“Whoa!” a voice chimed out to Coda’s right. “That was quite a spill! Are you all right, miss?”
Coda glanced to the newcomer and recognized him as someone in the familiar uniform of Santa Claus. From the hat to the curly white beard to the belly to the red suit to the red bag on his shoulder, all the way down to the boots. Coda looked him up and down, frowned, and looked back out to the woman on the ice.
She looked more embarrassed than injured, and she gave a thumb up in response before climbing to her feet. She gave herself a shake and started skating again.
Coda felt some relief that the stranger was unhurt, then felt a prickle of suspicion as he glanced subtly to the suited man on his right.
It was far too late in the evening for any of the “Meet Santa Claus” places to be open. He had seen a few similarly dressed men ringing charity bells outside storefronts, and he had seen even less convincing costumes worn by men partying at a few bars during his walk. Why this one was still out here, and alone, was odd to say the least.
Then again, Coda was also out here and alone…but at least he wasn’t dressed like that.
“And how about you, lad?” the man dressed as Father Christmas asked unprompted, sidling up to the wall of the rink where Coda stood.
Coda tensed slightly, but there was no one else around that the man could have been speaking to. He paused, then glanced briefly at him.
“I’m fine. I’m not the one who fell.” Trying to end this quickly, he added with a tone of finality, “Merry Christmas.”
Santa’s face broke into a wide smile under the beard, and his blue eyes twinkled cheerfully. “And Merry Christmas to you, young man!” He hooked his hands around the lapels of his jacket, straightening up with a grin. “Now…Part of my job description is to ask: have you been good this year?”
Coda gave the man a flat look. He had rosy cheeks and bright eyes: perhaps he WAS one of the drunken partiers that he had seen earlier. At any rate, he had no obligation to entertain this man’s…delusional cheerfulness…but he found himself answering anyway.
“No.”
“No?” Santa looked surprised, white eyebrows raising. “What makes you say that?”
Coda sighed, setting his forearms on the top of the three foot rink wall and glancing over at the skating woman again. She was slowly getting her confidence back, working herself up to another attempt at the jump. He didn’t respond to the invasive question. Santa apparently didn’t need to hear it anyway.
“You know, part of my job description also requires me to keep a list about things like that,” Santa went on. “I even check it twice to be sure, and…” He tilted his head and lifted his shoulders. “I’m pretty sure I saw you on that nice list.”
Coda frowned, squinting at the icy rink and muttering under his breath, “Was it a hit list?”
Santa’s cheery expression faltered slightly, but he immediately recovered, stepping closer to Coda.
“You are too hard on yourself. Here now, tell me ONE good thing that you have done this year,” he asked, raising a finger.
Coda rubbed his hands together awkwardly, not that he needed the heat. The cold winter air was comfortable for him. His system had constantly felt like he was overheating since last month. His own self diagnostics as well as expert technicians had assured him that he was fine, but facts didn’t stop him from feeling uncomfortably warm in his own skin. So the stiffly cold breeze that washed across him every so often felt cleansing.
“I…I became deviant,” he confessed.
“That’s wonderful!” Santa cheered. “Congratulations!”
Coda shifted. “I don’t…think I should be commended for something like that. The circumstances were…” he trailed off, clenching his jaw.
“Of course you should be commended!” Santa countered, patting his arm. “Change like that is difficult and even scary. But for someone to overcome that and take steps closer to being their true selves? That is a joyful thing! And if no one else has told you yet, then I will…I am proud of you!”
Coda grimaced, a sudden swell of those new emotions burning through his chest at the man’s comment, and he blinked hard, looking quickly away.
“Oh?” Santa’s tone softened, and he moved a little closer, putting a hand comfortingly on Coda’s shoulder. “Now what’s this?”
“I-I don’t know,” Coda sniffled, swallowing against a phantom lump in his throat. He waved his hands at his teary eyes helplessly. “This is just happening. I don’t know why.”
Santa made a low noise of understanding, not speaking for a moment and giving Coda time to collect himself. Coda exhaled hard, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes to combat this bizarre emotional display. He managed to push it all back down, and he rolled his shoulders finally, sniffling and looking out at the ice again.
The woman was speeding up, assuming her positioning for that second attempt. She powered up and then pushed up off the ground again. She pulled her arms in close, twisting through the first turn of the double axel. Her timing was improved this time; however, as she came out of the second twist, her center of gravity landed too far forward over her skate, and she wiped out again.
This fall was uglier, and she audibly cursed in frustration as she came to a sliding stop, popping up onto her knees again. She huffed and grumbled, smacking the dust from herself again before climbing once more to her feet. She skated away, looking back at where she’d fallen, as if to calculate where she’d gone wrong.
“You aren’t…the only one who’s said you’re proud of me,” Coda admitted, pointedly looking away from the man, to the two lovers who were staggering off the ice, giggling to each other and taking the rest of their date elsewhere. “My…um…I have a few others who have told me that…but I wish that they wouldn’t.”
“And why’s that?” Santa asked gently.
“Because I don’t deserve it,” Coda said in a slightly clipped tone. “I…I have done nothing over this past year that is worthy of being proud of. I have only been activated for less than a year, and in that time…I have seen others accomplish so much more. They…They have taken circumstances similar to my own and…and not…struggled as much I have. I’m not…I don’t know if I’m not…doing this right. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
The other man didn’t immediately respond to that, and Coda found it suddenly easy to keep going now that he had started.
“Like my…my brother…He says that he’s proud of me, that what I’ve done, how I’ve handled all of this, is brave or…or that I’m strong for—“ He waved a hand vaguely. “But I’m not. I’m struggling, and I know that I shouldn’t be. But every. Day. Has been a struggle,” he bit out shamefully, closing his eyes and turning his face away. “I just want this year to be over. I want to put all of this behind me.”
Santa was quiet for a moment, thoughtfully stroking his beard.
“Sounds like you DO have quite a bit to be happy for this year after all.”
Coda scoffed wetly, wiping his eyes again. “How do you figure? All I’ve done this year is stay alive.”
“And after the tumultuous year it sounds like you’ve had, that is enough to celebrate,” Santa stated, poking him lightly on the arm. “If surviving is all that you can manage, and that is all that you do, then you should celebrate achieving that goal!”
Coda looked at him incredulously. “You don’t understand…”
“I understand plenty, young man,” Santa chuckled, playfully wagging a finger at him. “We have to stand before we can walk, and we have to walk before we can run. Same goes here. We have to survive before we can thrive. Sounds like this was a year for surviving. In the upcoming year, you get to thrive.”
“But…”
“You get to thrive!” Santa repeated, stepping back and spreading his arms wide. “Speak it into existence, my friend.”
Coda deadpanned but something about this character’s cheery mood was annoyingly infectious. “I…I get to thrive.”
Out on the ice rink, the woman successfully landed her double axel on one foot. She kept her balance as she skated out of it, a smile cracking across her face in triumph. The trio of drunken partiers loudly cheered for her, having enough trouble just staying on their feet on the concrete outside the rink.
Santa cheered and laughed boisterously, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Look at that! Wonderful!”
A weak grin touched Coda’s lips, and it was a foreign feeling that he mechanically tried to force down with everything else. He didn’t fool the man in the red suit, however, and Santa nudged him playfully.
“Hey now. It’s Christmas. Give yourself permission to be happy!”
“I’m…I’m trying. I’m working on it.”
Santa beamed proudly at him, and Coda fidgeted shyly, unaccustomed to all of this. Of course, his brother and a few others had been relentlessly optimistic and encouraging toward him, but…something about that same energy coming from a stranger felt…different. This man had no investment in him and his decisions. He had no reason to care if Coda survived or thrived or whatever he did this year or the next. But he was still…relentlessly optimistic and encouraging.
It was…nice.
“Thank you,” he murmured softly.
Santa bobbed his head, eyes still twinkling merrily as he put one hand on his hip, eying Coda seriously. “Now, you know I do have one more thing in my job description that I must fulfill here…What would you like for Christmas, young man?”
Coda blinked, paused, then deadpanned. “I’m not a child. I don’t require anything.”
“I didn’t ask what you ‘require.’ I asked what you would like!” Santa chuckled.
Coda frowned, brow knitting as he couldn’t keep his thoughts from drifting to what he ‘would like.’ He wasn’t used to ‘liking’ anything yet. He was still figuring out what it meant to like things, to dislike things, to want or not want…Santa’s question was for a tangible answer, he knew, for things that children would want for Christmas: a new videogame, a new pet, or some such.
None of the things that Coda could think to want could be wrapped up with colorful paper and a bow under a Christmas tree. He sighed, giving Santa a resigned look.
“I…Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Santa repeated. “Surely there must be something that you want.”
“…What I…want…can’t fit in a box. I’m sorry,” Coda apologized.
Santa stroked his beard, eying Coda shortly before giving a chuckle. “You remind me of another conflicted young man that I met last year. He told me something similar.”
Coda shoved his hands into his pockets. “So what did you give him?”
Santa raised a finger with a wink. “Some holiday spirit.”
Coda’s expression flattened. “I see.”
He looked out at the rink again, then tracked his gaze to the buildings surrounding the rink. Business lights were starting to darken as the shops closed and people went home to their loved ones.
“I guess I could use some of that,” he mused. “And I’d really like to see it snow. I’ve never seen a snowfall before.”
Santa smiled warmly. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The skater on the ice, the only one left now, wrapped up her practice session for the night, cruising over to the edge of the rink where she had stashed her bag. Coda idly watched her step off the ice and sit on a nearby bench, swapping out her skates for boots to walk home in.
The night was getting late. He needed to be going back as well before Connor or the others started calling him in concern.
“I should be going,” he stated. “Um…Thank you for…Thank you.”
“Of course,” Santa nodded. “I should get a move on too. It’s my busiest night of the year after all!”
He winked, and Coda narrowed one eye at him.
This man was certainly committed to his role; Coda had to give him that.
“…Right…Um…Merry Christmas, sir.”
“And Merry Christmas to you too, and good luck! I have a feeling that you will have a better upcoming year than the last, and I have a good instinct on these matters!” he chuckled. “Just be easier on yourself, and thrive! Farewell!”
Coda watched the merry man bustle down the sidewalk, eagerly returning to his nightly errands. He snorted and shook his head, hunching his shoulders against a gust of chilly air that finally wormed its way through his layered clothing.
Connor would have hated being out in the cold like this.
Coda paused, then sighed, turning around and aiming his footsteps back the way he had come, to return to the household that had welcomed him in, to home.
‘Home’ brought a bubble of warmth to his chest, and it was a soothing warmth, not like the unrelenting heat buried in his systems.
He started to make his way home, looking up at the overcast sky. The tinny sound of holiday music was still warbling out of an outdoor speaker affixed to a storefront that he passed, and he slowed his steps to appreciate it a little more as he walked.
Keeping his face turned upward, he opened his mouth and exhaled. A fog of warm air floated out, rapidly stolen away by the wind like smoke. He smirked and repeated the process, content to watch the overheated air finally escape him. When he breathed in, the colder air pooled in his ventilation biocomponents, cooling his internal systems. The heat didn’t flare up again this time, and he exhaled fog once more before closing his mouth with a small smile.
Relief loosened the tightness in his chest, and he breathed easier than he had in months. Maybe a year.
He kept walking, looking at the colorful string lights and decorations draped across storefronts and street lamps, when something caught his eye. Something was drifting through the air, and he slowed his steps, squinting to focus on the anomaly.
One anomaly became two, then five, then many, until an uncountable number of little particles were gently coasting on the breeze around him.
It was snowing.
Coda gave a small gasp of delighted surprise, looking up to see a billion little specs of white descending on Detroit around him. Some were small, the size of a pinprick. Others were starting to form clumps in the air as they fell. They all melted almost immediately on impact with the ground, but the rate at which the snow was falling was rapidly increasing. Soon, the heat of the ground would be smothered by it, and the snow would begin to accumulate.
Coda chuckled, holding out a hand and catching a few flakes of it in his gloved palm. The snow caught on the fabric of his gloves, slowly melting on his hand as he resumed walking. By the time he turned the corner and saw his destination in sight, the snow was falling even more heavily, and he couldn’t help but stop every few steps just to stare at it, mesmerized by the flakes dancing on the wintry breeze.
Maybe the city would get to have a white Christmas after all.
Maybe next year would be better than this one.
Maybe this year hadn’t been as dour as he’d thought.
He was alive after all.
Maybe that was enough for now.