The Battle of Christmas Eve

Or, The Malevolent Med-Student vs. A Baby

His plan was simple. So simple, in fact, that he’d left his henchwoman Candystriper back at his lair despite her abject disappointment. “C’mon, boss!” she’d complained. “I always go on these things! Who’s gonna ride in the Side-effect Car?”

“No one!” the Malevolent Med-Student declaimed. “Tonight, I ride the Malpracticycle alone!” He swept off, leaving his henchwoman behind to sulk and monitor communications.

As he buzzed up to the target house on the ‘cycle, the Malevolent Med-Student felt things were going swimmingly. All was dark and no one was around; it was midnight, after all. The lights were off inside, all except for the Christmas tree blazing merrily in the window. That would give him plenty of illumination to find the passcode to the hidden wall safe in which he believed Super Soccer Mom kept the emergency codes that allowed her to deactivate and even destroy Seymour if someone were ever to hack her faithful cybernetically-enhanced soccer ball assistant. “With those codes,” the Malevolent Med-Student chortled quietly to himself, “The city will be mine!”

He pulled out his Stealth-O-Scope from a pocket of his uniform and scanned the house. One bulky human signature, almost certainly the captain, appeared on an upper floor. “Gone to bed, the moron,” the Malevolent Med-Student muttered. “Now, where’s-oh, shoot.”

Super Soccer Mom had just registered on the Scope. She was in the living room, near the tree. By his calculations, she was sitting right smack across from the wall safe.

He almost gave up right there. Then he noticed that she wasn’t moving. The Malevolent Med-Student noticed a brightly colored blob the size of a smallish Thankgiving turkey partway up the blob that represented Super Soccer Mom and he realized. “Ah, of course. She’s up with the baby.”

Now he had a difficulty. From outside he couldn’t tell if she was awake or asleep. He also couldn’t get a proper fix on the kid. He’d known from his preliminary research on Edison City’s newest power couple that they had one. What he did not know was the child’s abilities; that data hadn’t been realized yet. There was only one thing to do. The Malevolent Med-Student snuck around to the back door, fiddled with the lock, cracked it, and creeped inside.

He could hear the snores of Captain Happily Married rumbling down from over his head. At least he could be sure someone in the house was asleep. The Malevolent Med-Student made his way as quietly as possible through the kitchen and towards the corner leading to the living room. Then he stopped short.

The baby had just made a noise. It was a sort of half-awake mild protest, presaging a possible waking up. “Oh, no…” groaned Super Soccer Mom. She had just been at the delightful almost-but-not-quite asleep place where one can feel dreams queuing up and now she was back awake and dead tired.

“Okay, she said wearily. “Okay, little Meg. I’m here. Mommy’s here. It’s okay. Hush little baby, don’t you cry, Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird…”

The Malevolent Med-Student, pressed flat against the kitchen wall, groaned inwardly. He tapped out a quick message to his henchwoman. “Oooh, yeah, sorry,” Candystriper replied back on his comlink. “That’s got like eight verses. At least. More if she decides to improv. I never got that one anyway, like, the bird I get maybe, the looking glass, okay, but a goat? Who’s gonna buy their baby a goat? Like what’s the deal there?”

He had already turned his radio down. If it was only eight verses, possibly one or two more, he could wait that out. For control of the city (possibly the world), he could wait anything out.

Luckily he didn’t have to wait that long. By the time the song reached Papa buying the looking glass, the baby had drifted off back to sleep again. Super Soccer Mom, just to make sure, plowed bravely on through the billy goat verse, then skipped ahead to the final. “You’ll still be *yawwwn* the sweetest little baby in town.”

Her head fell back on the chair. The Malevolent Med-Student tensed up. As soon as he was sure she was asleep, he’d make the dash for the wall safe, grab the codes, and then-

“Ma-meh?” a soft voice said plaintively.

The wonder of the moment was lost on the Malevolent Med-Student, who just knew that Super Soccer Mom would wake up again and start the same repetitive lullaby all over again and he’d had just about enough of mockingbirds and billy goats and it obviously wasn’t his night. As hastily as he could manage without giving himself away, he made his escape, boarded the Malpracticycle, and tore off into the night.

“What happened?” Candystriper asked when he returned codeless.

“Lulla bies,” the Malevolent Med-Student said grumpily. “‘Hate ‘em.”

“Huh,” Candystriper said. Inwardly, though, she high-fived. That would show him not to take her on the caper. That’d show him.

Meanwhile, back at the house, Super Soccer Mom was finishing the last verse for the second time. “And you’ll be the sweetest little baby in town. You will! Yes you will!”

The baby giggled happily as Captain Happily Married’s mighty snores continued on upstairs. And so the world, or at least Super Soccer Mom’s part of it, was saved once again.