The Time War Ch 22

Chapter 22: Killing John F. Kennedy Again and Again and Again

"It was a man whose body glowed bright orange, and had glowing orange eyes."

Those glowing orange eyes.

"What?" said Calle.

"What what?" said Daniel. The team was talking casually over lunch, and Calle had gotten lost in his thoughts.

"What was that about a man with orange eyes?" Calle asked.

"Just a myth," said Daniel. "There have been stories in the Continuity Service for years about an orange glowing man who appears out of nowhere and has a transparent body."

"A transparent body?" said Calle. "And his eyes? What about his eyes?"

Daniel shrugged. "Orange too, I suppose."

Those glowing orange eyes.

Every since he was a child, Calle had a vision in his mind about glowing orange eyes. He had no idea what it meant.

"We call it the Bioman," said Daniel. "It's like the CS version of a ghost or a goblin, I suppose."

"Has anyone actually seen this... Bioman?" Calle asked.

Daniel thought for a moment. "I think Simon said he saw it once."

"Yeah, Simon, during the Argentina mission," said Major Reynolds. "I remember now."

Simon. The officer who had been carried off by a glowing man... in yellow.

"What happened?" Calle asked, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice.

Reynolds' eyes narrowed as he struggled to remember. "We had just finished our mission, and activate the recall device. As the gateway formed, Simon gave a yell. He said he saw something. Something big, and orange. With transparent skin, showing all his internal organs... glowing." He chuckled.

"Why are you laughing?" Calle asked.

"Well, we were in the same room as him, and we didn't see anything," said Reynolds.

Just like Reynolds never saw the glowing yellow being who carried Simon off the path.

But now Calle suddenly had a name for his visions.

And the name was

Bioman

.

********

The Black White Supremacists:

Ken Larson was trying to get Jamal interested in ballet. They had balcony seats and were watching

The Nutcracker

.

Jamal wasn't interested. He suspected his father also had zero interest in ballet. He only liked it because white people did.

"Look, Son, how that white girl just got flipped up into the air," said Ken, putting one arm around Jamal while he pointed with the other.

"Um hm," said Jamal. Then he noticed something. "Dad, why don't these white girls have any tits?"

"Girls with big tits can't be ballerinas, Son," said Ken. "They wouldn't be very... what's the word for it... aerodynamic."

"And the guys look funny too. I would rather be dead than caught wearing white pantyhose showing my balls sticking out like that," said Jamal.

"That makes them more attractive," said Ken, watching a guy prance around authoritatively on tippy toes.

"To the girls?"

Ken chuckled. "No, Son, to the other guys."

Jamal's eyes widened. "They are-"

"All of them," said Ken knowingly. "This is what white people enjoy. Flat chested girls and gay guys prancing around in their little tutus. Trust me, Jamal, it's the highest form of art that wonderful white people have ever created." He checked his chrono. It was time. He raised his voice. "Computer, freeze program."

********

Ken Larson had come up with a plan to save the life of President John F. Kennedy. They would neutralize the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, and prevent Kennedy from dying. As a result, Lyndon Baines Johnson would not become President, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would never become law.

"Hold on there," said Mel Watts, their financier and sponsor. "You're going to prevent black folk from getting civil rights?"

"There's nothing inherently wrong with the Civil Rights Act of 1964," said Ken. "It banned discrimination against black people. There's nothing wrong with that. We're all black folk here, aren't we?"

Jamal wasn't so sure.

"But it's what comes after that which is the problem," said Ken. "It wasn't enough for white folk to give blacks equal rights, they had to go overboard. They started discriminating against themselves, giving blacks preferences in college admission, jobs, and housing. They even started paying money to black women to have babies out of wedlock. It contributed to the breakup of the black family."

"The government paid black women to have babies without daddies?" Jamal asked incredulously.

"Uh huh. Look it up," said Ken. "But if we keep Kennedy alive, none of that will happen."

"I don't know, Ken," said Mel, scratching his head. "Preventing slavery from coming to America... I was onboard with that. But this will deny civil rights to black people."

"Mel, black folk will still get their civil rights, of course!" said Ken. "It will just take a little longer. In the meantime it will remove the tremendous moral blot on our heads, of 600 years of discrimination against white folk." He could see that Mel was uncertain. "Let's just try it and see what happens! We can always reverse it."

Mel bobbed his head awhile and then reluctantly nodded.

"Good," said Ken. "Then let us begin."

********

Preventing the assassination of John F. Kennedy was childishly simple. Ken, posing as a black businessman, befriended a Secret Service agent named Ron Childers. Ken reached out and warned Childers that Oswald was planning on assassinating President Kennedy when he came to Dallas. Childers naturally asked how he knew this. Ken handed over a very genuine looking handwritten letter from Oswald stating that he planned to kill Kennedy.

"How did you get this?" Childers asked.

"I have my sources," said Ken.

And so the Secret Service arrested Oswald. They found a rifle in his apartment, and schematics of the street where he planned to assassinate the President, and a journal describing his plans.

Childers thanked Ken. "You've done the nation a great service."

"Thank you."

"Just one thing," said Childers.

"What is that?"

"That handwritten letter you gave me. The one where Oswald talked about his desire to kill the President."

"Yes?"

"It wasn't written by him. It's a good forgery, but a forgery nonetheless."

Ken raised his eyebrows. "But you stated you already found evidence in his apartment."

"Yes... yes we did," said Childers, giving Ken an odd look.

And that, as they say, was that.

********

But after they returned to their base in triumph, Thelma Kendricks, who was also their Scanalizer, shook her head.

"What is it?" Ken asked.

"Kennedy."

"What about him?"

"He dead," said Thelma.

"Are you sure?"

"Trust me, Chile. I know the difference between dead, and not dead. He dead," said Thelma, pointing to a holoscreen.

Ken read the news account. Apparently, a month after Kennedy returned (unharmed!) from Dallas, he was poisoned on the back lawn of the White house when he was scratched by a pigeon with poisoned claws.

"A pigeon with poisoned claws?" said Ken. "Who would do that?"

"Historically, there was one nation that preferred poison as their assassination weapon of choice," said Kevin Myrtle

Ken and Kevin looked each other in the eyes. "The Russians!" they both said together.

********

"Let me see if I understand this," said Special Agent Ron Childers. "After alerting us to a plot by Lee Harvey Oswald to kill the President a few weeks ago, you have now learned about a second plot to kill the President... with poisoned chickens?"

"Poisoned pigeons."

"And who is behind this?"

"The Russians. They're still angry about the Cuban missile crisis."

"And how could you possibly know any of this?" Childers asked.

Ken was silent. He had no good answer for that. "Just check the pigeons. If I'm wrong, you Secret Service types can all have a laugh at my expense. But if not...." He let the sentence dangle for Childers to complete on his own.

********

When he returned to the Black White Supremacist base, Thelma had a holoimage ready for him. "Congratulations," she said, pointing to the headline.

"CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST WITH RUSKY POISON PIGEON PLOT."

"It's a terrible metaphor, but quite impressive alliteration," Kevin Myrtle observed.

"Whatever. At least we saved President Kennedy," Ken said.

"Not quite, Sugar," said Thelma. She pointed to another holoimage. "Look."

This one was dated a month later, in January of 1964. "PRESIDENT KENNEDY DIES IN FREAK ACCIDENT AT ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE."

*******

"He got sucked into an airplane engine on the tarmac?" Ken said, with clear disbelief in his voice.

"They had to bury him in slices," said Thelma.

Ken shuddered. "The Russians, again?"

"Not this time, Sugar," said Thelma. "They arrested several Mafia plants in the Air Force."

"The Mafia?"

"It seems they were still sore about some of those little investigations Bobby Kennedy conducted," said Thelma.

Ken exploded. "Why are white people so keen on killing each other? I wish the whites would just get along as well as black folk do!" He tried to calm himself, pacing the floor of the control room furiously. Then he sighed. He knew what he had to do.

********

"I want to be sure I understand this," said Agent Childers. "After warning us of a plot by Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate President Kennedy (thank you for that, by the way), you warned us of another plot to poison him with a pigeon (and thank you for that as well). And now, less than a month later, you come to me with another plot, this time from... the Mafia? Who are you, Larson, and how do you know so much?"

That was one question Ken could never answer. He shook his head.

"A suspicious person might begin to think that the only way you could know about all these plots against the President is if you were involved. A suspicious person might be inclined to arrest and interrogate you."

Ken sighed. "All right, I'll tell you. I'm a fortune teller."

"What?"

"You see, I knew you wouldn't believe me."

"A fortune teller," said Childers, clearly looking skeptical.

"Pancakes," said Ken.

"What?"

"Pancakes," said Ken. "Your wife will make you pancakes for dinner tonight." He had been prepared for this, with Thelma's help.

Childers' eyes narrowed. "Why would Louise prepare pancakes for dinner?"

"When your wife serves you pancakes for dinner tonight, think about what I said, and have Airman Iacocca, Cuomo, and Pelosi at Andrews Air Force Base arrested and interrogated," Ken said.

And so at dinner that night, when Louise served him pancakes, saying, "We have nothing left in the fridge and you forgot to go shopping like I asked you to", in a typically Californian passive-aggressive way (Louise was from the Valley), Agent Childers started to think that maybe it would be a good idea to interrogate those men.

********

When Ken stepped out of the Binochi Corridor, Thelma was there to greet him. "Good work, Ken!"

"So Kennedy's still alive?"

She looked at him pityingly. "Chile, it's 500 years later, of course he's not still alive. But you did save him." She brought up the news story entitled "MOB PLOTTED REVENGE AGAINST JFK, ONE SLICE AT A TIME" and smiled gleefully at him.

"So... we did it," said Ken. "Show me how the future looks-"

"Whoa!" said Thelma. "You stopped the Mafia from killing Kennedy. But he still dead."

"What do you mean?"

"Dat man, he still dead," Thelma said. She brought up another news story, dated late January, 1964. "PRESIDENT KENNEDY DIES IN FREAK AUTOEROTIC ASPHYXIATION ACCIDENT."

********

"Autoerotic what?" said Velma, Ken's wife.

"It's a way that some men... make themselves happy," said Ken slowly. "They strangle themselves to make... to make...." His voice trailed off.

"To make their dicks hard?" Velma laughed. "Doesn't he have Jackie Kennedy for that?"

"Apparently, according to the news account, President Kennedy was found suffocated in a closet, totally nude, in the process of... pleasing himself," said Thelma Kendricks.

"This can't be. This simply cannot be," said Ken. "I will not accept that John F. Kennedy strangled himself accidently in a closet while giving himself sexual pleasure. I want answers, people, and I want them soon!"

********

It was Thelma who uncovered the answer, after two long, exhausting days of sleuthing. "It was LBJ," she said wearily.

"Lyndon Baines Johnson? His Vice President?" Ken asked.

"Yes," said Thelma.

"Why?" Ken asked.

"Kennedy was going to drop LBJ from the ticket for the 1964 reelection campaign," said Thelma. "Kennedy feared that people would discover the truth about Johnson and his little boys."

"Lyndon Baines Johnson... and little boys?"

"Um hm," said Thelma, picking her teeth as she nodded.

Times had changed. What had been acceptable in the days of the Founding Fathers, fondling young boys, licking chocolate syrup off their young bodies--was now frowned upon in the 1960's. It wouldn't be until the early 22nd century that the pendulum would swing back again, when a seminal research piece written by influential child psychologist Doctor Marissa Guggenheim and promoted relentlessly by the progressive world media revealed that not only was child buggery healthy for young bodies and young minds, but even essential for proper child development and a requirement for all students attending public schools in grades K-8.

Ken sighed. "How am I going to explain this to the Secret Service?"

********

"I just want to be sure I understand this," said Special Agent Childers. "The Vice President of the United States is planning to assassinate the President, and make it look like an extreme masturbation attempt gone bad, all because the Vice President is afraid his secret of molesting young boys will force him to be dropped from the ticket."

"That about sums it up," said Ken.

Childers stared at Ken for a long moment. "If it were anyone else, I would call a mental hospital."

"But what will you do since it's me?"

Childers sighed. "Who do I need to watch out for?"

"The butler in the residential wing. Monitor his contacts with the Vice President's Chief of Staff-"

*********

"It's gone... it's all gone," said Sarah, stunned. She pressed a button. "Commander Strayker, you'd better get in here quick."

Strayker came marching in a moment later, furiously puffing on a nuclear cigarette. An Indian woman with a pot of atomic coffee and firm buttocks lifted her eyebrows, but Strayker shook his head. "What have you got, Sarah?"

"America... the whole civil rights movement... it seems to have disappeared," said Sarah.

"What?" said Strayker.

Sarah stared at rapidly changing holoscreens. "I'm tracing it back... back... to... yes, there, John F. Kennedy. When he failed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964."

"When Kennedy failed? I thought that was passed by President Johnson."

"Apparently, President Kennedy lived to serve two full terms as President," said Sarah. "The assassin... Lee Harvey Oswald... was apprehended before he could kill the President." Sarah studied the datastreams. "Apparently, there were several other attempts on the President's life afterwards... but they all failed too."

"This is terrible!" said Commander Strayker. "John F. Kennedy must die!"

********

There was a certain irony in all this, but no one was laughing. One of the most popular rides at Straykerland was "Let's kill John F. Kennedy!" The first year it opened, the waiting list was 8,000 people long, all eager to murder one of the 20th century's most endearing Presidents. Was murdering the former President so popular because he was so young, so handsome, or so good with the ladies? Exit surveys conducted by Straykerland indicated it was a mix of all three.

Of course, the 19,482 murders of John F. Kennedy at Straykerland had all been conducted in a small, discrete pocket of time, which had been overwritten the minute a customer exited the ride, and reset for the next one.

What they were now attempting to do was to assassinate the President of the United States in the main timeline, which was a different matter altogether.

"John F. Kennedy must die," said Strayker, glaring at everyone in the conference room with hard blue eyes. His bright blonde hair only made him look more severe. He waved his hand dismissively when an Indian woman with large buttocks attempted to serve him more atomic coffee. "Any ideas?"

"Well, we could hire a different assassin to kill him," said Major Reynolds.

"Not so simple," said Strayker. "Whoever is doing this will find out when Kennedy dies, and simply warn the Secret Service. We need a way of murdering the President which the Secret Service can't guard against, even if they know about it in advance."

"I don't think such an option exists," said Erica Green.

"It does, if the murderer is his own wife," said Strayker.

********

"Can you imagine a time traveler from the future convincing the Secret Service that Jackie Kennedy was about to kill her own husband?" said Strayker. "I can't. Therefore, she'd make the perfect assassin."

"But... to my knowledge, Jackie Kennedy doesn't want to kill her husband," said Daniel Acton.

"She doesn't want to kill him

yet

," said Strayker. "Doctor Vladek, see to it."

"Yes Commander," said Vladek.

********

A few hours later, Calle and Erica Green watched as a team entered the lab through the Binochi Corridor, carrying the unconscious body of Jacqueline Kennedy.

"Take her to treatment room two," said Doctor Vladek.

Erica watched open-mouthed as Mrs. Kennedy was carried away. She turned to Calle. "This isn't right. We shouldn't be in the business of assassinating a President."

"I know," said Calle grimly.

"And we shouldn't be making his wife do the deed."

"I know," Calle said again.

Sarah, who was sitting at her console and overheard every word they said, turned to face them. "If John F. Kennedy does not die, black people will not get their civil rights for generations. The timeline will be irrevocably changed. Some people will never exist. Isn't one politician's life a small price to pay for all that?"

"But Kennedy is so handsome," Erica whispered.

********

Erica stood behind the one way glass partition, watching Jackie Kennedy strapped to the treatment chair. Her mind was pumped full of psychotropic drugs, and in her ears was the loathsome recorded voice of Doctor Vladek.

"He cheated on you," Vladek intoned.

"No!" Jackie cried.

"He cheated on you with Marilyn Monroe. He slept with many, many women. Then he would come home and pretend to be a model husband."

"No, it's not true!" Jackie cried.

"It

is

true. John F. Kennedy cheated on you. You hate him for it. You hate him."

"No!" Jackie cried.

"Imagine him slipping inside of Marilyn Monroe, filling her with his sexual organ. The same organ he puts inside of you," said Vladek. Somehow, the words sounded ten times worse coming from Vladek's voice. Vladek's slow Russian accent grated on her ears.

"Nooooo!" Jackie Kennedy screamed.

At that moment Doctor Vladek entered the observation room. He smiled at Erica. "I think she's coming along quite nicely."

********

Doctor Vladek's prediction that a certain number of repetitions created a truth turned out to be the case here as well. In this case it was the 914th repetition, on the second day of treatment.

"You hate him...." Vladek's recorded voice intoned.

"Yes," Jackie mumbled.

Vladek, who was watching through the glass, stiffened. It looked like they had a breakthrough.

"You hate him," said Vladek again.

"Yes," said Jackie again. "I hate him."

"You hate him, and want to hurt him."

Jackie hesitated. But it only took 94 more repetitions before she accepted the new programming. "Yes, I want to hurt him."

Vladek gave a wide smile, truly a terrifying sight to behold.