The Christmas Challenge

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Detroit, November 2050

It was ten in the morning when Police Captain Gavin Reed returned home from a grueling nightshift and work overtime. All he desired now was to cuddle with his partner. But Daniel wasn’t to come home from his teaching job for at least four more hours, and so Gavin expected to enter an empty house.

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However… Daniel was at home, watching the ornamental fish.

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Gavin: “Tell me you caught something incredibly exotic, that will set us off to another quest to a newly introduced world and grants the paltry rest of the team that is still mundane an occult lifestate, too.”

Daniel: “Tempting, but, no, I’m not ill. Only suspended for the rest of the year.”

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Cuddles cannot cure everything, but there is little they won’t soften.

Daniel: “They’ll let me teach remotely during December, and pay for those hours, provided I apologize.”

Gavin: “No one can apologize like you, Danny.”

It was true. A hot-headed sim, Daniel threw himself equally deep into both his anger and being sorry.

Gavin: “What’s there to apologize for anyway?”

Daniel: “Dunking the principal’s head into a toilet.”

Gavin: “That’s an improvement over the incident from last fall, when you shot the president’s portrait in her office - she should give you credit for that, haha! – What was your argument about this time?”

Daniel: “That’s where this stops being funny. The school has canceled this year’s Christmas Party.”

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Gavin: “What? You kidding me? The Snowflake Gala is the biggest, most magical event in Newcrest every year! Plus, it’s Peggy’s final year at your school before she transfers to Henderson. They cannot take her last Snowflake Gala away from her, she’s entitled to four!”

Daniel: “Nope, not kidding. The parents’ committee claims the decorations are too expensive, all the good bands have been hired already and the kids aren’t in the mood anyway.”

Gavin was looking back at eighteen years as a police officer, and part-time work as a private eye before that. He had worked on his share of cases in Detroit, abroad and in one especially weird case also inside of a book that had come alive. He had accidently split his soul, too, so the man wasn’t a stranger to high stakes operations. But never before had the stakes been this high.