The Black Ops Elves

Who: Cerebrum, Elves
Where: A street
When: Just as the other members of the landing party get hauled off.
Cerebrum watched from the cover of the shadows, much like Garret, as the
polar bear police loaded the landing party into to a van, and drove off. He
wondered if he should do something, but decided against it. While not
interfering meant that the crew would be hauled off, locked up, and then
possibly tortured to death, it also mean that Cerebrum wasn't hauled off,
locked up and then possibly tortured to death.
"Now, the only way I'll get off this planet is via flying a shuttle out of
here," Cerebrum muttered. "I'm not a pilot, but I should probably think like
one. Now, if I were a member of the Blue Dwarf's piloting department, and
was currently in my situation, what would I do?"
Ten minutes later, in a pub
"What do you mean you only have egg-nog?" Cerebrum demanded of the
bartender. "Where's the beer?"
"We don't serve beer here," the elf replied.
Cerebrum stalked out of the pub, muttering angrily to himself. He stopped
when a black car pulled up in front of him, and a green-haired elf wearing a
black suit and who had a gun in hand, stepped out. "Get in," the elf said,
pointing the gun at Cerebrum's chest. Cerebrum quickly and quietly followed
the order.
"Do you know who I am?" the elf demanded, once they were both in the car,
and it was moving along.
"A hallucination?" Cerebrum guessed.
"Wrong, I'm the head of Santa's most important business," the elf stated.
"Toy making?"
"Espionage."
"Pardon?"
"How do you suppose Santa decides who goes on what list?" the elf asked, a
rhetorical question. "It ain't magic. Most of the elves are, contrary to
popular myth, in Black Ops rather than toymaking. We switched over to mass
production and product placement back in the twentieth century. You know the
routine, the corporation gets permission to use Santa Claus in their
commercials, we get a bunch of Playstations for Santa to deliver. Anyway,
like I said, espionage is what we do for Christmas. We've got teams of Black
Ops elves all over the universe, using black helicopters, phone taps,
supercomputers, hackers, covert entry experts, etcetera. to determine who
exactly is naughty or nice. We also do a good blackmail business on the
side. A vital necessity, given that we have no operating profit from toy
delivery. All operating under plausible deniability, it wouldn't do any good
for the public to find out that Santa's operation is financed via industrial
espionage and blackmail. Now, your arrival has put us in a bit of a tricky
position. You're in Black Ops yourself-"
"How'd you know?" Cerebrum asked.
The elf handed over a folder, Cerebrum looked through it and saw that it
contained pictures and voice transcripts of his visit to Cain's HQ. "How'd
you get this?" he asked. "My agency is supposed to be so top secret that
nobody knows who we are."
"Like I said, we have teams everywhere," the elf replied. "Now, as I was
saying, since you're in black ops, I was wondering if you'd like to join my
agency, and help ensure that the naughty and nice are classified properly.
We really need normal sized people to operate in society."
"How'd you operate before?" Cerebrum asked.
"Conventions primarily, when we have to deploy a large amount of men."
"Conventions? I don't get it."
"Think about it."
Cerebrum thought for a minute, then his eyes opened wide. "Of course, Star
Trek conventions where you fit in perfectly. It's brilliant."
The elf coughed. "Actually, we used to use midget conventions until we
stopped."
"Why'd you stop?"
"You will not believe the thing that showed up at the last midget
convention. All I can say is that half the female Black Ops agents quit
after than incident."
"Oh."
"So," asked the elf. "Will you sign up?"
"You mean, betray my oath to the service and to the Jupiter Mining
Corporation, betray everything I've ever worked for in my life and even
betray my fellow crewmates by signing on with you. How much does it pay?"
"Twenty-five hundred candy canes a month."
"Deal, have it deposited in my Swiss Chocolate account."
"Done. My name's Hoppy-TseTseng, by the way," the elf said. His face and his
gun clearly said that cracking any jokes about his name would lead to a
bullet in the brain. Elves apparently were sensitive about being made fun
of.