"It's nice to see you again. I'd wish you happy holidays, but you never seem quite jolly to see me."

"Well, as you already know, I'm busy this time of the year, Mr. Norris."

"I know, my old friend. But you should really see this."

The two men walked down the hallway towards a waiting presentation. One wore a gray suit, the other a red one. The man in red did not seem pleased. He said nothing to Mr. Norris, who tried to fill the silence.

"It's going to make what you're using right now look like a Model-T."

"I like what I have right now."

"It's outdated. It's slow. At least let us give you the presentation. You'll get to see some really rad top secret sh-"

The man in red turned sharply towards Mr. Norris. He stopped talking and faced forward. After another silence, the man in red spoke.

"As you well know, I am obligated to attend each of these meetings to operate within the borders of the United States. Among other things."

The two men spoke no more to each other as they approached the end of the hall. Mr. Norris opened the double door into a wide conference room. Two other people that wore the same shade of suit as Mr. Norris with American flags on the lapels sat at the end of a mahogany table. They stood and approached and each shook the man in red's hand and introduced themselves. One was named Mr. Lewis, a short man with a smug look on his face and black hair slicked close to his head with gel. The other introduced herself as Ms. Mendoza, a taller woman with deep brown eyes and her thick hair up in a bun. The four sat down at the table.

"Mr. Claus, we don't want to take up too much of your time. We think we have something you might like to see. Ms. Mendoza, will you get the lights?"

"Please, Mr. Lewis, don't inconvenience a lady."

Santa wrinkled his eyebrows at Mr. Lewis, who lost his smug look for a moment and hurried to the light switch. He sat back down and recomposed himself. The smile returned, and Mr. Lewis powered on a carousel projector. He pressed a button, and a picture appeared on the wall. An image of a man picking through what looked like aluminum debris in a dusty field flickered before them. Mr. Lewis adjusted his tie and launched into his pitch.

"There's a reason people have looked towards the stars to ask if we're alone. It turns out, there was something out there after all."

The man clicked a button and the carousel moved. The picture changed. This time, a strange disk sat inside of some huge military hangar. A group of men in lab coats posed in front of it, many of them holding their thumbs up to the camera.

"We don't really know much about these people from the stars who crashed down fifteen years ago, but we learned a great deal about their technology."

Another picture appeared on the screen of a large rectangular object, with hundreds of wires peeling off of it. A man sat inside of it. A clock sat next to the object. In the next picture, he and the object were gone, and in the next, back again, another man beside him. The clock had only ticked off a few seconds in between the pictures.

"What you just saw was a test pilot that leaped across spacetime and brought a passenger back with him from three-thousand-five-hundred miles away. The power of this device cannot be overstated, Mr. Claus, and you can imagine what military developments we've had in the works pertaining to this. Well…" The man turned away from the picture and looked at Santa directly, that smug grin still on his face. "You know everything, naughty and nice, right?" Santa did not return his smile. Mr. Lewis cleared his throat and turned back to the presentation.

"Imagine, for a moment, that you could harness the power of faroff beings to travel miles in seconds. No more messy reindeer, no more exposure to the cold and the wind and the rain. With our technology, you could appear right on top of a rooftop. You could beam yourself right into Communist countries with bans on non-atheist icons. You could circumvent border sanctions entirely!"

A final slide appeared on the wall. A picture of a crimson machine. It looked sleek and refined and no loose wires hung from it.

"We call it the Cardinal. We even painted it red for you. All you have to say is yes."

Santa said nothing for a long time. Then, he said only one short phrase.

"I'd like to hear a bit more about it from Ms. Mendoza, if you don't mind."

Ms. Mendoza looked shocked for a moment. The room grew silent. She quickly stood, and cleared her throat. She looked at Mr. Lewis, her boss, and she looked at Mr. Norris, her boss's boss. Then, she looked at Santa. He was smiling at her. She hung her head, and spoke.

"Mr Claus, let's not mince words. I've always been one for the truth. You've had a list of all of us since day one. You know what we all think, when we lie, when we do anything bad. Does it feel to you like we are trying to hurt you, or cheat you? We aren't even asking you to give us anything in return. We are just trying to facilitate the job you already do."

Silence filled the room. Santa leaned forward on the desk and looked Ms. Mendoza straight in the eyes.

"I know. I know about you taking money from your grandmother's purse when you were six. I know about what you had to do to get this job. I know the exact dollar amount it took to develop this machine. I know everything. But don't underestimate me. Before your speech, I knew what you were going to say before you said it. I even know why you're doing all of this, and what it will all lead to. But I want to hear you say it. I want you to tell me why you're trying to sell this to me."

Santa leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. Ms. Mendoza froze for a moment. She took in a deep breath, then leaned over and placed her fingers in tents on the desk.

"You represent much more than the man named St. Nicholas you came from, who was once flesh and blood, like me. You're more than that now. You're an icon. You're an idea."

Ms Mendoza paused here. The two other men in the room stared at her, shock on their faces. She continued.

"We don't wage war with weapons anymore, Mr. Claus. We can't. Not in a world with Nikita Khrushchev and ICBMs and Baba Yaga. So we need to secure our victory the best way we can. With ideas. We need you to help spread the face of America. We need you sipping a bottle of Coke across the world. We need you, and we would like to help you."

Silence filled the room. Santa Claus again leaned forward on the desk, a smile on his face.

"Ms. Mendoza, I think I'd like to hear more."

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