TITLE: Mechas, Marzipan, and Mouse Kings

AUTHOR: "Matrix Refugee"

RATING: G

ARCHIVE: Permission granted

FEEDBACK: Please? Please? Please?

SUMMARY: Was it all a dream? Or...

DISCLAIMER: I do not own "A.I., Artificial Intelligence", its characters, settings, concepts or other indicia, which are the property of the late, great Stanley Kubrick, of DreamWorks SKG, Steven Spielberg, Warner Brothers, Amblin Entertainment, et al. (If I did, there would be a TV series of it on HBO)

NOTES: This chapter owes the most to the last chapter of the E.T.A. Hoffman story's epilogue; I just re-read the story this afternoon, specifically Ralph Mannheim's excellent translation (published in hardback with illustrations by Maurice Sendak, based on designs he did for the Pacific Northwest Ballet's production of "The Nutcracker Ballet"... which was also made into a movie, which you might be able to find on VHS; I highly recommend it, since it captures some of the dark quality of the Hoffman original)

I also have to come clean and express my debt to Laurie E. Smith's fanfiction "Fire From Heaven", which you can read at: . , from which I borrowed the idea of memes, or code which can be shared from one Mecha to another.

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Epilogue: Christmas Morning

Clair opened her eyes and looked around her. She was back in the living room of her home, lying on the sofa. Her dad was just coming into the room.

"Good morning, Clair," he said. "You must have snuck down here during the night. Checking on your new little Mecha?"

"Oh... yes," she fumbled, still a little dazed by the night's journey.

"You okay? You look as if you didn't know where you were," Dad asked.

"It's just... oh, the dreams I've had," she said, hardly daring to tell him what had happened in the night. He'd just laugh them off.

"We all have dreams like that, especially on Christmas Eve," he said. "Come on, you better scurry upstairs and get ready, or we'll be late for church."

She got up and went upstairs to her room to dress quickly, putting on the green jumper and the red blouse she'd planned to wear.

Once she was dressed, she went downstairs and slipped into the living room to peek under the tree.

Prince Siegfried had vanished. She felt a little pang at this, but she knew it had to be this way if he was ever to fulfill his mission and she was to help him out.

The Operation Mutant Strikeforce Supertoys and the Supertoy tin soldiers had settled in among the other packages, mixed together, as if they were all on the same side.

"Hey, they did give me the Operation Mutant Strikeforce set!" she heard Fritz call out. She turned to see him scurrying toward the tree. She managed to get out of his way before he plowed into her.

The rat-headed Supertoys looked up at Fritz, their beady eyes glittering, their claw-like little hands going for the swords at their belts.

"Is this the human who insulted you, comrade?" one of the rat-heads asked one of the tin soldiers.

"It is one of them," the tin soldier replied.

Three rat-heads snatched up their swords and rushed at Fritz. Their heads were just below his kneecaps, but he still backed away from them. One of them jabbed at him with his sword.

"Hey! You can't do that to me!" Fritz yelped, staggering back.

"Consider yourself lucky we cannot do worse to you for the way you have treated out kind," the rat-head snarled, showing its fangs as it sheathed its sword.

"Geez, what's got into those things," Fritz said, slinking away.

Clair hid a smile in her hand.

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After church, they went to the Chans' house for a breakfast party, which Evan and Emily's parents had every year for some of the Cybertronics' employees, a little like the party the night before, only a lot less formal, and fewer people, mostly the people who worked the closest with Uncle Allen.

"I wonder if Uncle Allen has any other surprises up his sleeve," Fritz said, as they drove over.

"Oh hush, you're always looking for what you can get for yourself from something," Clair retorted. "Can't you just enjoy being with people for a change?"

"Well, who got hoopy over that ugly Nutcracker Supertoy?" Fritz snipped back.

"Fritz, your sister is right," Tessia said looking over the seatback at Fritz with a killing glare. When she turned away, Fritz made a rude gesture at Clair, who coolly ignored him.

Emily let them in and the Chan's serving man, Hideki, took their coats. Emily brought them into the family room, where most of the other guests were already gathered, sipping coffee and tea and mimosas and nibbling on croissants. Clair watched Evan introducing his girlfriend Nancy, whom he'd just met at college, to her parents, but somehow it didn't bug her to see him with another girl. They looked happy together, and she felt herself hoping for the best for them.

She didn't see Uncle Allen, so she asked Emily what had happened.

"Oh, he had one of his migranes come on terrible, so he couldn't make it," Emily said. "But Ms. Plum and her Mecha-friend came."

"Where are they?" Clair asked.

"Ms. Plum's in the kitchen helping my mom, but I think Dodiel's in the conservatory."

"Thanks," Clair said, and she made her way to the indoor garden at the back of the Chans' house.

They'd added a few Christmas plants among the small shrubs and half-sized birch trees: red and white poinsettias and tree ferns that looked almost like Christmas trees, especially with the little glass balls and red bows that someone (probably Emily) had hung on the branches.

She caught sight of Dodiel sitting on a bench near the small pond at the center of the garden. He wore a red vest with golden buttons over a silvery-white silk shirt and black dress slacks. As she came close to him, he looked up and smiled at her as he stood up.

"Ms. Clair Hobby?" he asked. "It's a pleasure to see you again and so soon. Merry Christmas!"

"And Merry Christmas to you, too," she said.

"You seem a little troubled," he noticed. "Would you care to speak of it, or would you rather talk of more pleasant things?"

She looked around. "Can you keep a secret?" she asked in a low voice.

"No Orga can keep a confidence the way a Mecha can," he said. He led her to the seat and sat down beside her only when she had sat down.

"I would have told this to Uncle Allen... Dr. Hobby, I mean, but he's not here," she said. "But I have to talk to someone about this. You won't laugh at any of this, will you?"

"I might laugh with you if there were any humorous moments in your narration," he said. "But to laugh in derision is something I cannot and will not do."

"Good... Well..." and she told him the whole story of the previous night's adventures.

"I didn't want to let Siegfried go, he was so beautiful. But he had a mission to accomplish, so I had to let him stay there in his world. I had to come back here."

He nodded, up, down, then back to center, but he did so thoughtfully, slowly. "Yes, it is clear you thought highly of him. Indeed, you loved him. I am told love reaches its perfection when it considers the needs of others far above the needs of the self and seeks to do what is best for them even when it costs the self some hardship."

She looked into his calm face. "How do you know this?'

He smiled quietly. "I cannot say why. It's just what I have always known somehow."

She looked into his eyes and she noticed something she had not noticed the night before:

Dodiel had blue-green eyes, like the Mecha Prince.

THE END