The days after Christmas can be busy, if you've got family visiting and awesome things planned. Or they can be a drag, if people are working. Or, if like me, you have teens who want to huddle in with their new video games. If you're looking for something short and fun to read, here's the beginning of my Christmas novella, The Trouble with Tinsel

Chapter One

Now I’m no Grinch, but I just want to go on record saying, “I hate tinsel.” The garlands are bad enough—those fluffy ropes get caught in automatic doors and jam up the works. The long, stringy bits that are meant to resemble icicles are worse. Inevitably, someone will throw a handful, or twenty, into one of the float tubes, and we’ll find the stuff all over the station, well into February.

But the door-sized, foil curtains of fringe are the worst. They’re all the rage on SK2 this year. Fluttering drapes of bright, metallic tinsel wave across every corridor in the place. The loose reflective nature of those curtains confuses the bots. And when the two-meter-long strings break loose, they wrap around the gears inside the vacu-bots, sending them limping home to the garage.

Maybe I am a Grinch. Nothing stops up the works like Christmas. Sticky Kakuvian pine pitch on the floors, wrapping paper filling up the recycle shoots, drunken party-goers spewing in corners. The cleaning bots don’t handle any of it well. Which means I have to. Handle it, that is.

My name is Triana Moore, and I’m a maintenance technician on Station Kelly-Kornienko. In other words, I’m a space janitor. Keeping the bots working is my bread and butter, and at Christmas time, that’s no sleigh ride.

A flashing red icon catches my eye. I shove the last of a Toasty Pie into my mouth and roll my chair up to the console. Bot 23D is stuck. Running diagnostics tells me nothing, and the on-bot cam shows only clear corridor. I dispatch a repair drone and turn back to my Sweet Slurp.

A second flashing icon appears next the first. The repair bot has stopped about twenty meters from 23D. They’re on cross corridors, so the two bots are not in line-of-sight, but a quick scan shows nothing near the repair bot. Now that’s odd.

I tap into the vid feeds, but that intersection is dark. The cams are offline and can’t be rebooted. My eyes narrow. This feels like hacking. But when I go into the operating system, there’s no indication anyone else has been there. Hmmm.

I toggle the contact icon and tag the ops supervisor.

“Ops, al-Rashid-Thompson.” The operations supervisor, “Rash,” appears on the screen.

“Maintenance, Moore,” I respond. “I got a couple bots up on Level 20 on the fritz. They aren’t responding, and I can’t get vid.”

“Yeah, I noticed some cams were down. I was wondering when you were going to get around to fixing them.” As he speaks, a banner flashes across my screen.

Level 20. Cams down.

“Hello! Space janitor, here. I don’t fix cams, I just dust them.” I lean in and swipe a sleeve over the cam I’m talking into. Rash waits until I lean back to roll his eyes. “But I’ll take a look while I’m out there.” I flick the banner and the details pop up. They’ve been out for twenty minutes, so why didn’t the alert come in right away? “Why didn’t you tag repair?” Two can play the finger pointing game.

Rash holds up his hands. “I did. I’m just yanking your charging cable, Moore. We’ll watch the store while you’re out.”

I sign off, forward the calls to Ops, and lock the MCC behind me. I bat the shiny green fringe of one of those zarking tinsel curtains out of my way and stride out to the Level 2 concourse.

A thick airlock door separates the repair and maintenance section from the rest of Level 2. I wave my ring at the door, it cycles open. A wave of sounds slams into my eardrums. I fight my way through another tinsel curtain, this time red, and out into the crowded concourse.

Throngs of people crowd the open space, everyone with a cup, mug, or bottle in hand.  Inflatable reindeer and a huge sparkly sleigh hang from the ceiling. A vendor sells something sticky-looking from a little cart on the far side of the space. A bar has been set up outside the small pub on my right, and a line of people wait in line for spiced wine. Fine, white confetti whirls through the air, floating on the wafts of circulating air. Christmas is still three days away, but when the holiday falls on a Monday, the party starts on Friday.

“Merry Christmas!” someone sings out, and a cheer goes up.

Scents of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg tease my nose and I sneeze. Inane Christmas music plays over the concourse speakers:

His little red spaceship shoots across the sky
With eight engines racing, just watch them fly!
A team full of elves printed presents all year
On the planet North Pole with the magic reindeer.
Space Santa! Watch him fly
Space Santa! He’s our guy
Space Santa! Bringing gifts to all
Space Santa! Space Santa!

Someone shoves a beaker into my hand. It looks like eggnog, but the fumes indicate a high level of alcohol. I hand it off to someone else as I make my way through the crowd. Puffs of white cottony “snow” lie in drifts at the base of the float tubes. A stray tuft wafts up inside the tube as I watch. Shaking my head, I step into the tube and follow.

At Level 20, the party continues. Here the decorations are blue and white instead of red and green, and a two-meter-tall dreidel spins above our heads. Someone shoves a glass of blue liquid at me, shouting “Martzel Pop!”

I battle my way through the horde, throwing a few gentle hip-checks along the way. Ducking into Radial 7, I hurry out-station and turn again at C Ring. The sounds of the party fade to a muted rumble, and I wave my ring at an access door.

Ducking through the entry, I scramble through the quiet bot duct, bent almost double to avoid the pipes above my head. Some of the bot access ducts are tall enough to allow easy access for workers, but in these older, lower levels, a lot of them have been modified over time. The conduits have been added for additional wiring and plumbing. The space above them is often illegally co-opted by residents, providing extra storage. Sometimes it’s rented out on the black market to bring in extra credits.

A few meters in, I reach bot 23D. It’s humming quietly, so I tap the control panel. The tiny screen lights up and shows all systems green. “Why are you just sitting here?” I ask, but the bot doesn’t answer. Which is a good thing—they don’t have voice response.

I run diagnostics, just to confirm the green screen, but nothing pops up. Crawling over the bot, I check underneath and all around. Nothing on the floor that would stop it from moving. Some of the bots are designed to follow painted cues on the floor, but this is not one of those bots. And the floor is clean. I hit the resume button, and then jump away as the bot tries to continue on its pre-programmed route. It stops harmlessly a couple centimeters from my legs. Looking up, I spot the girders from which the conduits are suspended. I grab the girder and pull my legs up, in the kind of crunch I’ve seen Kara do. As soon as my legs are out of the way, the bot to trundles beneath me and away on its business.

I drop back onto my feet. Fixing bots and getting a workout at the same time—way to multitask Triana! I rub my stomach, wondering if one crunch counts as working out. It’s Christmas, so yeah, it does.

The bot bleeps again, stopping about ten meters away. Maybe there’s a loose chip or wire. This is going to take some major diagnosis work. Opening the command screen via my holo-ring, I flick the “suspend the route” button and input a “return to garage” command. Execute another perfect gymnastic feat to allow the bot to head back the way we both came. Two crunches—maybe I’ll reward myself with one of those sticky pastries when I get back to Level 2.

With a yelp, I swing up into a third crunch as the repair drone I sent up earlier whizzes toward me, hot on the trail of the vacu-bot. I am definitely getting the sticky bun when I get back down.

I wander further up the duct. Obviously, the repair drone never reached the stalled bot. Maybe there was something up here causing the trouble. I reach a cross duct. A movement to my right draws my eyes. Then I do a double take.

A young-looking man with flowing white-blond hair sits cross-legged in the center of the duct. His head is bowed, his powerful shoulders nearly touch the duct sides, and a snug red shirt stretches across his abs and pecs.

I straighten in surprise and bang my head against the conduit. “Fork!”

The man’s head pops up and his startling blue eyes fix on me. “Spoon?” he replies uncertainly.

Rubbing my head, I step closer. “Who are you? And what are you doing in my bot duct?”

He cocks his head, as if considering my question. “Is this your duct?”

“I’m a maintenance tech, so yeah, it’s my duct.” I say, belligerent. “Who are you?”

He shakes his head, his thick hair swinging around his face. “I don’t have a good answer for you.”

“Look, if you’re too drunk to remember your name, I can get you some BuzzKill and send you on your way.” I’ve encountered lost partiers before. “I won’t call security. But you can’t stay here.”

He pushes a hand through his hair. “I don’t feel drunk. I just don’t remember my name.” His eyes widen. “Or how I got here. Or where I came from.”

“What do you remember?” I ran into some criminals a few months ago who used a memory-wiping drug. Maybe this guy got a dose somehow.

The guy’s stomach growls, loudly. “I definitely don’t remember when I ate last.” He smiles at me, the expression lighting up his face. “Would you like to join me for dinner?”

Do you want to read more? Get The Trouble with Tinsel