Carol for Another Christmas by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Read Free Book Online Page B

time being,” he said. “Some of us are only on contract, but some, like Sheryl”—he nodded to the young woman whose color resembled strong tea with a great deal of milk—“have been here since Doug and Wayne founded Databanks.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t know it was the same place,” Sheryl said with a woeful shake of her head. “Would you, Harald?” she asked another fellow, this one thin, dark, and bespectacled, and perhaps a bit older than the others.
    He shook his head sadly and held up a slice of pie with what appeared to be cheese melted on it. “Nope. Look at this. Cold pizza. On Christmas Eve, no less. Dragonlady closed all the cafeterias after five P.M. and charges more than a five-star restaurant to eat there. Plus we get only a half hour.”
    Phillip chimed in, “When Doug was alive, they were always open and free , so if you were working on a problem at two A.M., you could still get a noshie.”
    â€œShe brought in time clocks ,” Melody said with a delicate shudder.
    â€œSold the art collection, too,” Sheryl added for lornly. “I could tell which building I was in by that art collection. Now all the interiors look the same. I was lost for three days once trying to get back from the rest room.”
    â€œPay toilets,” a red-haired woman interjected.
    â€œI used to be able to tell where I was by Matt in development’s inflatable shark hanging from his ceiling, Karen the coder’s aquarium, tester Bob’s stuffed gorilla, and the different Doonesbury , Far Side , and Peanuts cartoons on people’s windows, but they’re all gone now,” Curtis said, shaking his head, grieving for what had gone before. “All gone.”
    Scrooge could tell they were very upset, but he hardly considered these complaints to be on a par with those of the folk he had found, once he took notice, to be starving, freezing, or perishing of disease and poverty in London during his own time. Still, he had come to realize in his latter years that working conditions were most important to employees.
    â€œI read that she’s closed off all but one bathroom, one bedroom, and a kitchen in Doug’s mansion,” the redheaded woman said. “She’s letting the estate grow wild, like the grounds here.”
    â€œNot for long, Miriam,” Curtis said. “She’s going to sell Databanks’s old-growth forest to Beaver Construction and let them subdivide the campus grounds for condos.”
    In the fervor of their complaints, they seemed to have forgotten entirely that they had not believed Scrooge to be real. Not that he was sure he was. But their comments served to reaffirm his suspicion of why he was where he was, wherever that was, which he did not know. Nor did he know when it was, for he felt that these people belonged to a quite different time, such as Mr. Jules Verne might have speculated upon in his stories. Before the Christmas with the ghosts, Scrooge would have disbelieved this perception, himself, or found it unsettling. But he had found that traveling through time could be instructive for him, and he was certain, now, that his current travels were intended to be instructive for others. Whenever this was, he knew one important thing: No matter which year this was, it was Christmastime, and Christmas was being ignored.
    â€œNever you fear,” he told them, feeling full of resolve. “I am here to see that you have a merry Christmas, after all.”
    â€œMerry Christmas?” Sheryl asked. “Who has time for Christmas? We’ve got work to do.”
    â€œYeah, who has time for all that card and candles and jingle bell stuff?” Phillip agreed.
    â€œIt’s just another cheap commercial excuse to make a buck,” John added. “Not, mind you, that I don’t like bucks.”
    â€œI always get very depressed around Christmas, personally,” Harald said.
    â€œI might get into