Justification For Killing

by Larry Edward Hunt

  “Indeed it was Captain, in another parallel time, and another dimension, a Parallel Universe quite different from this one today. As earlier stated, the universe you are currently living in has been named by my Supreme Council on Sunev, but suffice it to say, its name, as I said earlier, is unimportant.”

  “Well I must admit the course of history is certainly more pleasant in your helmet version. I just wish those events I saw had actually transpired. If so, our Earth could have experienced peace and tranquility instead of death and destruction. Peace and tranquility - what a wonderful thought. Without the horrors of nuclear war, the U.S. and countries around the globe would certainly have enjoyed a much more happier and fulfilled existence. Oh, how I wish that had happened for real. Let me get this straight - if the Earth were in the Parallel Universe as displayed in the ‘Visiondome’, Bud, my grandson, would be alive. Is that a correct assumption Anhur?”

  “Yes he would be alive and well and do not forget - it can happen!! It is possible, it CAN happen Captain Scarburg!”

  “What are you saying Anhur - how can this be possible?”

  “With your help Captain. It is possible to shift these Universes.”

  “What? How can we change the path of the destiny of our world?

  Anhur began to explain how the Captain could use the Timetraveler. A machine, which had the ability to jump between Parallel Universes, the same Timetraveler the SCAR team had developed, using Sunev’s plans. He told Captain Scarburg how he and his team could return to Dallas at exactly 12:30 on the twenty-second day of November in the year 1963.

  Anhur made sure the Captain understood it was imperative when he got to Dallas to stop the man on the roof of the building from shooting the President of the United States of America. The projectile he fired must hit the pigeon... the Captain must make sure the man on the sixth floor of the building shoots the second bullet. The man in the window must fire the second projectile and the Secret Service man will not be wounded. In addition, the President will be fatally shot. That will allow the person on the Grassy Knoll and the ones still in the building to accomplish their missions. The alternate future the Captain witnessed in the “Visiondome” will then occur.

  History’s bumpy road into the future split at the moment of that first shot by the sniper on the roof of the Texas School Book Depository. Earth, unwillingly, was diverted from the Universe it was traveling to the Universe of today. Anhur pleading said, “You can put it back, you are living in the wrong Universe Captain Scarburg.”

  “Anhur,” said the Captain, “may I ask you a question? When the Universe jumps from one Parallel path, say ‘A’ to another path let’s say ‘B’ would we notice? I mean if one were aware this ‘leap’ was going to take place at exactly 12:30 on November 22, 1963 will they notice or perceive the change?”

  “Yes, Captain they would... it is always accompanied by an intense, micro-flash of blue light, but a person would have to know when it was going to occur and would have to know what to look for. Most people simply would pay no attention to it at all. It happens in the twinkle of an eye as you would say.”

  “Thanks... I guess Anhur. I believe I am more confused now than before.”

  “Captain, the Supreme Council, believes your world should have stayed on its original path. This original Universe is the world you witnessed in the Visiondome. You can allow the Earth to return to this better world by stopping the shooter on the roof from firing the first shot at President Kennedy. Simple you think?”

  “Simple? Simple? Your people are simple Anhur... simple-minded! Are you suggesting I allow the assassination of the President of the United States?”

  “No Captain - you are not allowing your President to be killed - in the original Universe this tragic event has already occurred. You are just going to insure that Universe be allowed to continue just as you saw within the Visiondome.

  “Anhur you must have lost your marbles. The Timetraveler does not work. It has failed the last three times we tried it. Who will guarantee it will not fail on the fourth attempt?”

  “First, Anhur does not play this child’s game - marbles! And second, I cannot guarantee it will work, but I have faith your team of scientists at SCAR will solve the time machine’s problem!! It is particularly beneficial they understand – there is no such thing as ‘time-travel’ what your people are trying to accomplish is ‘time-reassignment’.

  “Thanks, that is easy for you to say Anhur, but I don’t know about our ability to correct the enigma. We have already lost three machines – we got them to dematerialize to another dimension, but we were never successful in getting them to return,” the Captain said as he was turning in his chair to a four drawer filing cabinet located directly behind his desk. “Let me pull the lab reports on the first three flights and see where our failure analysis stands.” He extracted the folder and turned back to address Anhur, but the Captain was sitting in the room - alone. Anhur was nowhere to be seen. He had vanished! He was gone!

  Captain Scarburg sat for a few minutes contemplating the recent exchange - was a different future possible? What if he actually could alter the course of history back to the correct Parallel Universe? What an incredible world we would have, he thought. Can I change Earth’s destiny? Is it conceivable, just barely conceivable I can prevent Bud from getting killed in the Southwest Asian War? If this is remotely possible, I will try anything - anything, even if it has only a one in a million chance of success, he thought as he mulled over the idea.

  The time was 11:30 a.m., Friday November 16, 2012.

  Chapter Four

  “CALL A CONFERENCE MEETING”

  The Captain sat absorbed; thinking (for what seemed were hours when in reality was only a couple of minutes) then arrived at a decision. He waved his hand over the black glass top on his desk - his Personal Communicator. A facial image appeared in the glass.

  “Yes Captain,” the face answered. It was Krista, the Captain’s office manager/chief cook and bottle washer, but most importantly - his daughter-in-law. She was married to the Captain’s son, Robert “Trey” Scarburg III. Krista might be Captain Scarburg’s secretary but paramount above all she was the mother of the Captain’s grandchildren. Robert the III didn’t genuinely like the nickname ‘Trey’, but Papa Scarburg had burdened him with it as a young lad, so he has lived with it ever since.

  “Krista, call a conference meeting for 1300 hours Monday afternoon, with all the SCAR directors and include my family. I know Lou is in town for his annual budget review.” The Captain usually referred to her as ‘Krissy’, but when upset or absorbed in deep thought he would inevitably call her ‘Krista’. Krista knew something was up when she heard him use her proper name. “Make sure Spook and Tinker are there too.” He followed as a second thought, “you too Krista.”

  “Why me Captain? Should I tell them the subject of the meeting?”

  “No - you will all find out at the meeting Monday.” He followed as a second thought, “I want Trey, Lou, Forrest, Gabrielle and Olive Marie to attend this conference also.”

  Forrest, Krista’s son, now there was a fellow - Robert Edward Scarburg the Fourth. He was the fourth because there are three others Robert Edward Scarburgs, which came before him. When Forrest, as he was known, was a small lad his Grandpa Robert Edward Scarburg Jr, began calling him Little Four. Little Four got to be confusing, so Grandpa began referring to him as 4-S. Four S... Four-est... Forrest. He didn’t think it was all that funny either, but he was stuck with it, like it or not.

  Forrest’s brother Dr. Buddy (Bud) Edward Scarburg and his brother Dr. Louis (Lou) Edward Scarburg served as SCAR Regional directors. Lou was director of SCAR’s facility at Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. Bud, before he was killed, managed a SCAR laboratory located at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Facility in Huntsville, Alabama. Marshall developed the Saturn rockets that carried the men to the moon on Apollo 13. The place was loaded with pointy-head rocket scientists and nerds with plastic pocket protectors for their pens.
Bud was a natural, and SCAR fit in with NASA like a glove. During the early phases of the Southwest Asian War, Bud had been a member of Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 20th Special Forces (Airborne), Alabama National Guard. While serving in an in-active status, his Guard unit in Birmingham, Alabama was suddenly deployed to active duty to Iraq. He was killed in one of Saddam Hussein’s poison gas attacks in 2007.

  Chapter Five

  VIETNAM REVISITED

  Back in 1967, Papa Scarburg, the first Robert Edward Scarburg, was a Green Beret Master Sergeant in the 5th Special Forces (SF), Airborne (ABN), in Vietnam. Most of the time his men just referred to him as Sarge, Doc or the Vietnamese’s equivalent Bac Si. While in Laos on patrol Sarge and his SF A-team were captured and marched across the border of Laos deep into the jungles of Cambodia. Papa was a prisoner of a Spetsnaz Colonel named Nikita Ergorov. Spetsnaz is a Blue Beret awarded Russian SF officer. This sadistic officer subjected Papa Scarburg to extreme torture.

  Colonel Ergorov tortured Sergeant Scarburg by tying his hands behind his back, suspended him from a beam in a remote shack in the middle of the Cambodian jungle, and tried to extract information on something called The P.H.O.T.O. There were two problems with the Russian Colonel’s methods. First, no amount of torture was going to extract information from Papa Scarburg and second if he were predisposed to talk he could not since he knew nothing about this thing called The P.H.O.T.O. The Colonel would ask over and over about The P.H.O.T.O., Papa Scarburg would, over and over, give only the Colonel his name, rank and serial number. This was unacceptable to the Russian bastard (that’s what Papa Scarburg called him). After each question, the Colonel would cut a piece of flesh from Sarge’s chest. His carvings eventually formed the shape of a large ‘S’. The Colonel bragged since Papa Scarburg thought he was ‘Superman’ he would give him a ‘S’ on his chest, so he could imagine himself to be this Man of Steel.

  Papa Scarburg survived this horrific ordeal and later was visited in the Army hospital by his son Captain Robert Edward Scarburg Jr. Known now as the Captain. The Captain had official U.S. Army orders for him and his Papa Sergeant Scarburg to return to Cambodian. If possible, they were to discern the location and if found return with any and all information concerning The P.H.O.T.O.

  After the Army nurse at the hospital showed the Captain the large letter S scar on his Papa’s chest he went out and had an identical ‘S’ put on his own chest, but not craved, tattooed and somewhat smaller. From that day forward, Papa Scarburg was known as Big S, and the Captain has been called Little S.

  After Big S was released from the hospital he, along with Little S formed another A-team and ventured into Cambodia looking for a place called Pac Toul. Pac Toul was thought to be the answer to The P.H.O.T.O. question. The Special Forces A-team left South Vietnam with thirteen team members, including Spook the CIA operative.

  The team parachuted into Cambodia and walked, clawed and fought their way to a remote spot in the jungle known as Pac Toul. On arrival, Big S’s original thirteen man A-team had been reduced to only three - Big S, Little S and Spook. At Pac Toul, they encountered some ‘things’. Things even today they are not supposed to talk about. One thing they did find was a slave labor camp of prisoners, all scientists. Aliens, from the planet Sunev, had abducted these scientists from all over the world and forced them to work in their laboratory. Did you catch the name ‘Alien’, well that was whom they were?

  As the team was storming Pac Toul, the extraterrestrials removed all the prisoners from the building with the exception of one person. This captive hid within the building and was overlooked and not taken. The rest of the prisoners were taken onto a circular disc and were being removed from Pac Toul when something went horribly wrong, and all the captives were accidentally killed. No, not all, there was the one who hid she survived.

  The captive hiding from the aliens was a young student chemist named Ling Lu. She had befriended one of the aliens by the name of Anhur. The aliens, especially the alien leaders, treated the captives with disdain; however, Anhur considered Ling Lu to be his friend and assisted her as the prisoners were being moved. With his help, she was able to slip away and hide unnoticed as the others were being herded outside. Without Anhur’s aid Ling Lu, most likely, would have been killed along with the other captives. An intriguing side note concerning the aliens: the leaders wore elaborately carved golden medallions suspended on ornately woven, gold chains, the workers wore identical carved medallions; however, the worker’s emblems are made of silver and hung on the same ornate but silver chains.

  Ling had been working at the Pac Toul facility as a chemist. She had been abducted from her studies at her university in Taiwan and forced to work for her alien captors. Her given name was Ling Lu, but Ling in Chinese means ‘Bell’, so Papa Scarburg and Grandpa, hung the nickname of Tinker on her.

  OLE ABE

  The one machine found in the alien lab that fascinated the Americans the most was a gadget they dubbed ‘The Edison’. This is a fantastic machine: when a still photograph is inserted into one end of the machine, what is called today, a CD would come out the other end. Placed into the CD player, the photograph would become a moving picture for exactly thirty seconds. Why just thirty seconds and no more? Tinker did not know the answer. All she knew was anything that had been said, or sounds created at the time of the original photograph’s exposure could be captured and recreated on the CD. Tinker demonstrated the ‘Edison’ a couple of times, which simply astounded Big S, Little S and Spook. The first time she used a photograph of President Abraham Lincoln taken by the famous Civil War photographer Matthew Brady. The following is verbatim the scene in 1967 at Pac Toul, Cambodia:

  Miss Lu asked Spook if he would be so kind to get her a photograph from one of the dozens of cardboard boxes stacked along the wall. Any box, it does not matter, and any photograph he chooses, she said, would be suitable.

  Dr. Kim rummaged around in the boxes looking at one then another picture. He would stare intently at one shake his head and toss it back. After a number of discards he finally settles on the ‘one’, a photograph with a caption which read, “President Abraham Lincoln reviewing Antietam battlefield with Allen Pinkerton and Major General John A. McClernand, Oct 3,1862”.

  He thought, if she gets anything from this picture I will be surprised, it’s over a hundred years old!

  Walking across the room directly to Little S, “Take a look at this, what do you think?” said Spook handing the Captain the picture. Spook had already learned, in addition to his scholarly knowledge, Little S considered himself quite an amateur historian – the ‘War Between the States’ as he referred to the Civil War, being a favorite of his.

  Little S grasped the photo, walked over to a bright light source, and surveyed the picture quite absorbedly.

  The Captain motioned to his Dad Big S and said, “Come view Spook’s find.” When the three of them had their heads close together Little S sighed and in a hushed voice, so Tinker wasn’t able to hear their conversation said, “Well, this picture is the real thing. This is a photograph taken after the Battle of Antietam. “Ahem”, he said, “as we in the South refer to it as the ‘Battle of Sharpsburg’; as I recall, the battle took place in September 1862 – the man on the left wearing the derby hat is Alan Pinkerton, he started the Secret Service; of course everyone recognizes Ol’ Abe Lincoln in the middle who had come to survey the battlefield, and the general on the right, I suppose based on the caption, is General McClernard; however, I’m not too familiar with him.

  I have seen this picture many times before - this is quite a famous photograph, and the photographer was none other than the distinguished Civil War photographer, Mathew Brady; however, let’s not provide Tinker with any more information than she needs.” Turning to her, he asked, "Miss Lu do you have a pair of scissors?”

  “Well, let me think... yes, I think so, Captain. There should be a pair in the work desk behind you,” she said pointing at the desk with her index finger.
The Captain retrieved the scissors and neatly snipped off the caption identifying the photograph, and he, grinning like a Cheshire cat, handed it to Miss Lu.

  “First,” she said, “the photograph must be processed through the Magnetic Synchronizer, or as we call it the MagSync. I’m just a chemist, so I cannot begin to explain the theory behind how it works. I have heard others here say the MagSync manipulates atoms on the subatomic or quantum level, in what is called, the Nano area.”

  She explained that whatever happens in this minuscule echelon prepares the photograph to allow sounds and images to be extracted. She did not know how, but she said, “In scientific terms – it just works.” The team, to which she was assigned, never worked on the Magnetic Synchronizer. She apologized for not being able to tell them more about how it performs, all she knew was the ‘Edison’ used a tremendous amount of energy to do whatever it did.”

  Tinker smoothed the photo out, straightened the corners and carefully inserted it face down, into an adjustable picture size slot at the front of the MagSync. She then tapped a quarter-sized button, instantly the original photo emerged from a slot next to the one she had just used. The photograph was next inserted into a second slot, face side down again; Tinker flipped a switch; pressed slightly on a couple of buttons with strange symbols; lights on the device started blinking, and the machine began to hum into operation.