Natalie

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. As the Krampus threat became known Santa made his greatest creation. Mrs Clause. Natalie learned early that survival under Santa’s rule wasn’t loud. It was routine. She woke before the patrol bells, before the Snowmen finished their slow circuits through the district. The apartment was always cold. Everyone’s was. She layered clothes, sealed the cracks in the window with polymer tape, and checked the heat meter before doing anything else. Breakfast was protein brick softened with hot water. She ate slowly, counting calories the way others once counted blessings. Waste was dangerous. Waste looked suspicious. Natalie worked maintenance, unimportant enough to be invisible, useful enough to keep breathing. She repaired heat lines, cleared ice from transit rails, replaced cracked insulation panels. Jobs the elves logged but didn’t want to do themselves. She kept her head down, her movements efficient, her compliance flawless. Not because she believed in Santa. Because belief didn’t keep you warm. Every day she memorized patrol routes. Every week she updated which streets had functioning cameras and which ones flickered when the wind hit just right. Knowledge was insulation. Patterns were armor. At night, she tuned her radio low—barely a whisper beneath static. Official broadcasts first. Always. Mrs. Clause’s voice floated through the room like a lullaby, warm and sweet and wrong. Natalie listened carefully. The lies changed. That mattered.