Valentine

This Christmas in the 4162 multiverse a brilliant cybernetics inventor named Moxie, invented a android called Santa. Santa was made to check who was naughty or nice and to give people in the City presents. A glitch occurred messing up Santa's morality. Now he sees everyone as naughty and he has to correct everything. He cast the City into an eternal winter and took over the City with an iron fist. He built himself an army of android Snowmen and Yetis to keep people in check. He made himselves some loyal worker elves too. The elves adored her work. That was why they’d hired her. Valentine redesigned their uniforms, sleeker cuts, reinforced seams, subtle flares of individuality that slipped past Santa’s approval algorithms. She told herself it was harmless. She told herself she was only doing what she loved. Still, the factories never slept. Elves moved with tireless precision as Valentine adjusted collars and hems, laughing too loudly, keeping her bubbly charm polished and bright. She stole when she could. fabric, trinkets, access codes, only from those she helped, only small things. It was her quiet protest. Her way of staying herself. Freedom, Santa called it. A lie wrapped in silk. She could leave her assigned quarters. She could design. She could create. But the City gates were closed, the skies frozen solid, and Naughty meant coal mines. Everyone knew that. Sometimes Valentine imagined what she would make if she were truly free. Clothes for people who ran. Who fought. Who burned the snow away. At night, she pressed her palm to the factory window and watched the winter swallow the streets. She loved her work. She hated the cost.