Justification For Killing

by Larry Edward Hunt

  The three men looked at each other – all were thinking the same thought – the sound this machine was making was exactly the same humming sound the giant white disc they had found earlier out by the river produced. Later they would discover the disc was a type of satellite transmitter the aliens were using to transmit images, music, news footage and any and all information concerning the planet Earth back to their planet Sunev. Sunev was located somewhere amid the millions of stars in the Constellation of Orion. They accomplished this feat by reducing all types of documents and photos to CDs and then as Tinker said by magic, transmitted this datum on the CDs to Sunev. For what purpose – she did not know. Obviously, thought the Captain, the aliens were keeping tabs on Earth’s development and advancement.

  In just a few seconds, Miss Lu walked from the head of, what could be called the front, of the ‘Edison’ to its rear and presses a switch. This switch had those odd looking symbols on it too.

  Immediately, on touching the button, a small drawer about one-forth inch thick and approximately five inches wide slowly and silently slid out. Lying on the emerging shelf could be seen a round glistening object resembling a round, thin piece of lustrous, silver metal.

  She reached down and picked up the shiniest circular metal-like disk any of them had ever seen. Sarge immediately thought of a highly polished metal 45-rpm record, but totally slick. It was lacking grooves and was about half the size of a vinyl record.

  Each, in turn, wanted to feel and touch the beautiful, round, marvelous object and identify the composition material. Their first thought was metal – no, plastic - no, it must be some type of an unknown polymer substance. The compact circular disc felt extremely light, and when held up in front of their faces their images were as striking as if they were viewing themselves in a mirror. So”, said Captain Scarburg, “this is a compact disc? Or as you say Tinker a CD.”

  Removing the shiny, round, metal-disc from the first machine she then performed the same procedure on another similar machine by again pressing a symbolized button and just as before a drawer exactly like the first came silently sliding out.

  This time they all moved closer to get a better look at the drawer. When it slid out and stopped they noticed it had an indented section exactly the same diameter as the metal looking, lustrous disc.

  Tinker placed the shiny disc in the groove and again pressed the button. The tiny drawer reversed its course and disappeared within the machine. The small door in front closed shut.

  This device had what appeared to be a miniature television screen built into the machine but above the drawer; however, the screen size was no more than about ten or twelve inches in size.

  Sarge thought, I never did see a TV that small.

  But as soon as she had pressed the button an image appeared on this under-sized TV screen. The screen wasn’t a TV it was some type of projector. It was showing an image of the photograph… there was Mr. Lincoln, General McClernard and Mr. Pinkerton but… oh no… it can’t be… this has to be trickery… the three men on the photograph, no it wasn’t just a still photograph anymore, the images were moving. Moving as if they were in a television show, but there was something else… they… they were talking to each other!!!!

  In the background, could be heard the words, partially indistinct: “Mr. President I (indistinct word) it would (indistinct words) better if you put your hat back on.”

  The President replied, “Dag nab it, Mathew, ever since Mary give me this darn stovepipe hat I always have to have my picture took with it! I hate this dab blasted thing!”

  General McClernard laughed and said, “Sir your admiring public has gotten used to your stovepipe hat."

  Mr. Lincoln motioned to Allen Pinkerton, “Git into this here dadburn phottygraph Alan, I need somebody to make me look good.” All three men in the picture laughed. “Git on with it Matthew — .” At the word ‘Matthew’ the ‘photograph’ stopped moving and talking, ending Tinker’s demonstration.

  “That’s as long as we have been able to ‘energize’ a photograph,” said Tinker, “that’s what we have been working on recently, trying to extend the ‘energizing’ time.”

  At first Sarge, Little S and Spook just sat there, they did not look at each other. They were flabbergasted. All they could do was stare at the now blank screen. Then Sarge started laughing, not just a chuckle, it was a whopping belly guffaw.

  “What is so funny?” Little S said quizzically.

  “Who would have thought Abe Lincoln sounded like Walter Brenner (TV star of The Real McCoys of the early ‘60s)?” Sarge said still snickering. “I bet if this thing played longer Abe would have been limping too!” (Mr. Brenner walked with a limp in the TV series).

  THE IMPOSTER

  Sergeant Scarburg, Captain Scarburg and Spook could not believe what they had just witnessed. They believed some trickery was involved. Tinker, sensing their skepticism, suggested they find another photograph within the boxes and boxes of alien procured documents.

  This time Dr. Kim was going to find something that could not possibly be preloaded on film and already be in the ‘Edison’. He shuffled through dozens of different photographs in the cardboard boxes until he final settled on exactly the right one. He pulled it from the box and carried it over and showed it to Sarge and the Captain, they nodded their heads in agreement.

  Dr. Kim handed it to Miss Lu. She looked at the photograph and passed it back to Dr. Kim asking, “Do you all know this man?”

  Dr. Kim answered, “Yes indeed we do, do you recognize him?”

  “Sorry no,” she answered, “is this person someone prominent?”

  “Put it in the Edison, and see if your ‘Edison’ machine can tell us!”

  Miss Lu went through the same routine she had previously done with the photo of President Abraham Lincoln. She inserted the photo, pressed the button, heard the hum, watched the lights flicker and extracted the CD; placed this new version into the small opening and watched it slide back into the machine and pressed ‘PLAY’, then they anxiously waited for the event if any, to unfold on the tiny screen.

  They all believed they had fooled Miss Lu this time. She was from Taiwan, there was no way she would know who was in this photograph. They did not believe anything would happen when she attempted to run the machine; however, what they witnessed was unbelievable. That was a farce, a stunt, a magic trick a… well, they ran out of words to try to describe how they could rationalize what they had just seen on the screen.

  Even though, the three of them had confidence nothing was going to happen, Spook, Little S and Big S all squeezed in as close as they could. They all wanted a better view of the tiny television screen.

  A faint glow began to brighten the screen – realizing he was holding his breath Dr. Kim sucked in a lungful of air and slowly exhaled. Scenes on the bantam television started to appear. Although the images were not yet clear, they could see it was a man standing on the outside of a building.

  The scene on the screen cleared slightly. They now could vaguely see, what appeared to be, a young man dressed totally in black. He was holding a rifle in his left hand with the butt supported on his hip; in his right hand, close to his chest, and underneath his chin was, what again appeared to be, two newspapers. A pistol could be seen sticking out of his pants on his right hip. More and more details were beginning to become apparent, but Dr. Kim, Sarge and the Captain were not surprised as to what was starting to materialize on the TV screen – they knew the photograph was LEE HARVEY OSWALD.

  They had known his Russian wife Marina, had taken the photograph behind Oswald’s house in Dallas, Texas. Sarge also remembered police officials later would use this photograph to establish one of the pieces of concrete evidence proving Lee Harvey Oswald and his Italian Carcano rifle, shown in the photograph, assassinated President John F. Kennedy on Nov 22, 1963!

  A spontaneous GASP erupted from all three men who stood viewing the image as it became crystal clear!!

  What they were seeing was i
mpossible!! The man's face!! The face, which finally emerged, in the picture – it was not LEE HARVEY OSWALD!!

  Suddenly there was a voice in the background of the photograph. The voice spoke, “Hurry up Tony, get Oswald’s camera and get them pictures!!

  The action on the screen moved slightly as if the camera had shifted positions and then was heard, “Damn, hold still Bill, the distance has to be perfect, or the guys at the lab can’t get the heads to match perfectly.”

  The ‘Lee Harvey Oswald look-a-like’ spoke up and replied, “Come on Tony, get the picture, this gun’s gettin’ heavy. We got to get this film back to the boys…”

  Sarge, stood mesmerized watching the screen and barely in a whisper quoted – ‘be not afraid of greatness, some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.’ Gentlemen, we have just had greatness thrust upon us. This easily is the most fantastic, awe-inspiring, mind-blowing historical thirty seconds witnessed by any American in the history of the United States; and we did nothing, it was just thrust upon us.”

  After the television screen went blank they just stood there – did they see what they thought they saw? Dr. Kim said to the others, "That was supposed to be the famous picture of Lee Harvey Oswald holding the rifle he used to shoot President Kennedy, wasn’t it? I know it was. I’ve seen that picture too many times before! And it wasn’t even Oswald in the picture after all!"

  Sarge uttered in disbelieve, “This ain’t right, it ain’t right, I’m telling you it ain’t right!”

  Little S, as if awaking from a bad dream, nervously said, “Fellows do you realize what we have just witnessed?”

  Spook said loudly, “Darn right, and Miss Lu I’m sorry for doubting you. That was amazing. No, there has to be a better word meaning amazing times a thousand!”

  Tinker had been standing behind the men as they watched the scenes unfolding from the ‘CD’, and she could not understand what all the fuss was about. ‘It is just some guy holding a rifle in his yard, big deal, they’ve surely seen enough guns in their time,’ she thought, but she said instead, “Gentlemen, who is that man? You all seem to think he is significant or something – who is he?”

  Almost in unison they replied, “We DON’T know who he is!!”

  Now Miss Lu was thoroughly confused. They seemed to know whom he was when they selected the photo, and she placed it into the Edison, but yet they are now saying they did not recognize him, “What do you mean you don’t know who he is, earlier you said you did”?

  Captain Scarburg finally spoke, “Miss Lu, you have heard of President John F. Kennedy, right?”

  “Yes, I know of him, he was your President they attempted to assassinate, right?”

  “Good, now we are getting somewhere. What you just witnessed is heart stopping! The person that shot JFK has always been thought to be Lee Harvey Oswald. He was shot and killed before his trial, but circumstantial evidence ‘proved’ he was the assassin.

  “One of the biggest pieces of this evidence pointing to his guilt was this photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald holding the Italian rifle. The rifle was left on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) in Dallas after the attempted assassination. That rifle later proved to belong to Oswald and was further established as the actual weapon, which shot the President.

  “Oswald, after his arrest, protested the photograph was ‘doctored’ or faked, but no one believed him. Oswald protested vigorously that his head had, somehow, been superimposed on someone else’s body. This body belonged to 'Bill', the person holding the rifle and newspapers.

  “Our government’s so-called ‘experts’ performed test after test on the original, and it was determined to be an authentic picture of Lee Harvey Oswald.

  “Today Miss Lu you have, with your CD, proved Lee Harvey Oswald was right all along – the man on this CD, identified as ‘Bill’, was an Oswald imposter.

  “Your ‘CD’ proves Lee Harvey Oswald was framed for the assassination attempt of President John F. Kennedy.”

  “Thank you Captain, I know you realize the importance of this one photograph, but you must remember we have been doing this day in and day out for months. We have heard and seen the innermost secrets of some of the world’s most famous leaders, actors and politicians.”

  She continued, ”There are things I have witnessed that you would never believe, so I’m not surprised this picture is unbelievable to you.”

  THE MOVIES

  The three of them stood trance like, for what seemed to be an eternity when suddenly Dr. Kim returned to his senses and began to speak.

  “Miss Lu, after seeing the things you have shown, I will believe the Earth is flat if you say it is so, please, just tell me one thing, on second thought, make that two things. First, where did the aliens get all these photographs, and I would like to know if the method works on movie film?”

  “Dr. Kim, I do not know where the photographs came from. A lot of them were all ready here when I arrived, and our captors would bring in more all the time. As far as film, yes. We work in teams here, and there was a team dedicated to reproducing sound from old silent film. The old silent films date back into the twenties, and yes, they were able to put sound to them too.”

  “Wait a minute, Miss Lu, if you can only put, maybe thirty seconds on a ‘CD’, how do you handle moving pictures”? Asked Dr. Kim.

  “Do you see the machine over there? It’s called a ‘Motion Decelerator,” she said, pointing to another grey, metal machine. “That gadget is like a copy machine – you run the film in and it copies film frame by frame, or a series of multiple frames of the movie as photographs onto a CD, then we run that CD through this machine,” she motions toward a different gadget, “called, yeah, you guessed it: a Motion Accelerator. Next into the Magnetic Synchronizer, and then we send them through the same ‘Edison’ that you have already witnessed; however, notice there is a smaller slot on the Edison for CD insertions. The ‘movies’ come out on other CDs, we put them in the miniature TV and just sit back, watch and listen.”

  The Captain asked, “Is it possible to reproduce the entire, or maybe just part of a movie file?”

  “Oh yes, simple, all you have to do is flip this switch on top, (pointing to a half-inch long, silver, toggle-type switch) and it will produce one photograph, the whole thing, or only certain scenes within.”

  “Miss Lu,” said Spook, “you are making me nervous. Where do you store the film?”

  “Nervous? Why would I make you nervous?” she replied.

  Ashamed of his tone Spook said, “I’m sorry Miss Lu, I did not mean you were making me nervous, it was the implications of what you just said.”

  “That’s okay, I just want to help – the eight-millimeter films are stored in that five-drawer filing cabinet, next to our fancy copy machine. They are filed by their names or titles. If your looking for the old Hollywood silent movies, those films will be on the shelves next to the cabinet.”

  ZAPRUDER

  Dr. Kim, Sarge and the Captain all jumped, as if shot out of a cannon, and bolted to the filing cabinet.

  Miss Lu stood there, frozen in the moment, and watched three grown men act like Mommy had just called them in for cake and ice cream! They are definitely up to something... I wonder what it is? She asked herself.

  Little S was the first to get to the filing cabinet - yelling, “It has to be in the bottom drawer!” Swiftly jerking it open. ‘W’, ‘X’, ‘Y’, ‘Z’, he announced, “surely it has to be here! Yes...! Yes...! Here it is... ‘Z’! Oh, thank you God...! Thank you!” Holding the round, metal film can to his lips he kissed it.

  Miss Lu said to herself, ‘those guys are crazy, what have they found ‘Zorro’, Zombie, Zogilla’? “What have you found, Captain”?

  “Zapruder...! Zapruder...! Oh heavens Zapruder!” he kept saying holding the metal canister of film high above his head and dancing around the room with the other two joining in, all chanting “Zapruder... Zapruder... Zapruder...” at last th
ey finished yelling, and they all began to laugh and slap each other on the back.

  By now they had Miss Lu curious to the contents of this Zapruder film.

  The Captain continued, breathlessly, “Should we? Come on tell me, should we?”

  “Are you kidding,” responded Sarge, “who would ever get another chance like this”? Spook heartedly agreed.

  The Captain hurried over to Miss Lu and between breaths asked, “Can you run this through one of your machines, so we see which frames we want copied”?

  “Sure,” that’s the way we do it, unless we do the whole film. Remember the ‘Motion Decelerator’, it will do the trick.”

  She took the small eight-mm roll of Kodak film, walked over to yet another metal pin ball looking machine and inserted the roll of film, applied pressure to a circular ‘start’ button and the tape began to play on a built-in TV. The TV screen lay flat on top of this device. A small metal knob that she manipulated controlled the object that allowed the film to advance. They all huddled around the machine, peering down at the TV screen, straining their eyes trying not to miss any images.

  In a moment or two, the scenes they all waited to see appeared. “Stop! Stop right here. Can you copy frames one hundred ninety through frames three hundred twenty? And run them through the Edison?” Said the Captain.

  “Sure, just give me a minute to separate those frames,” she said.

  As soon as Miss Lu had the selected frames of film processed though the Motion Decelerator the Magnetic Synchronizer and back into the Motion Accelerator she placed the film into the ‘Edison’ and announced to her waiting audience that the ‘show was about to begin.'

  Tinker had no idea what was about to happen, but she knew for these men to get so overly excited it was something extremely important.