by W. Green
As he boldly walked out of this desolate part of the base and into the town of Rantoul, he contemplated the job ahead. In 2028 parlance, he was a 'fixer'. The Authority used him when necessary to intercept rogue time travelers. When JFK did not die on November 2, 1963 this was automatically detected by the system. It was an unusual case because normally the system detects more modest anomalies before they become a major time/change event. Nevertheless, it was his job to clean up the problem. He was a veteran of this type of work and enjoyed it. Sometimes it was a greater challenge for a black man to go back in time to make the necessary corrections because of the societal imitations placed upon him. This was particularly true in America before 1960. But in other ways, in the right situations, being black made him invisible—an excellent attribute for a time-detective such as Costas.
He was here in the Middle West of America on the evening of November 7, 1963 to locate the unauthorized time jumpers who ‘saved JFK’ and bring them back before they caused any more significant time disruptions.
He caught a Greyhound Bus in Rantoul and headed north.
O.A. LOG TTA2028-1
INVESTIGATOR: Joell Costas
DATE: November 8, 1963 (July 9, 2028)
PROJECT: JFK-11.02.63
ASSIGNMENT: Determine the location and identity of the person or persons who participated in the alteration of The History as related the historical death of President John F. Kennedy (JFK) in Chicago, Illinois on November 2, 1963. Take whatever actions necessary to assure that there will be no subsequent interference with the resultant new JFK related events as now described The History. Executive Action, if necessary, has been authorized.
DISCUSSION: Arrived yesterday 11.07.63 (local time) at LZ 5462-008 at approximately 22:22 CT. My arrival was unnoticed. I proceeded to the nearby town Rantoul and took a public bus to Chicago. I am staying at a local hotel in the near west Loop area.
On November 2, 1963, United States President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated. However, because of a time/event alteration created by unknown time traveler(s), he is now alive-in this time. The effects of this fact were immediate, substantial and they were determined to be not in the best interests of The Authority. However subsequent events shortly thereafter resolved the disruptive time anomaly in a favorable manner thus preserving the overall integrity of The History. While there was considerable internal debate whether action is required at this time, it was determined that there was a confirmed risk that The History may be compromised again. Although the directive forces in place should overwhelm any additional attempts to alter events. This is the first time that The History has been affected with such impact. While there have been minor changes to events due to the use of time travel technology in the past, up to this point exclusively by rogue agents of The Authority, those changes either self-corrected or resulted in consequences that were acceptable to The Authority. In fact only a small number of such disruptions to the past were made. In every case The Office of Anomalies successfully tracked down the perpetrators and eliminated them in the past or returned them to the present for processing.
I requested I be given absolute discretion with regard to the deposition of those persons causing the time anomaly. While I have this power, I am aware other officers may be placed into position if deemed required by The Authority. If so, I will not know, until I am be contacted by those parties to coordinate our efforts and to assure that no one inadvertently triggers a time alteration. Obviously, the more time travelers operating in the past, including those of The Authority, the greater the likelihood of time disturbance. Again, it can be stated for the record that I am, until officially relieved or made unavailable, in charge of this case.
TRANSMITTED VIA CODED TIME JUSTIFIER AT 10:26 CT 07/09/28.
-Chapter 14-
There’s No Place Like Home
The Panama Limited’s matched set of horns moaned like trumpets in a Dixieland dirge as it raced south through the heartland of America—a huge orange and yellow serpent. Up close, the fantastic, ferocious, bellowing beast grabbed the attention of every field hand and villager in its path, yet seen from a distance it blended into the vast, tranquil graveyards of tawny crushed cornstalks as if one with Nature, sliding sinuously under the weakening late Autumn sun—destination New Orleans.
They sat across and facing each other amidst a party car full of vacationers. Five days had passed since JFK had been saved. As Emma gazed aimlessly out the wide horizontal window, she smiled gently and then rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. Her brother, sitting directly across from her, saw her face brighten.
“What’s the joke, Emma,” he said.
Dr. Currant joined in, “What?”
Zak wore an expectant look.
“OK,” she said. “I was just thinking about the fact that we made such a difference. We—the four of us—the Four Musketeers. We did it. We saved his life.”
“Darn right. Just like I said going in.” Ethan smiled but that smile dropped off when he turned his head to face Currant. “What?—What is it?”
Dr. Currant eyed the Twins and Zak. “Work’s not over folks. That’s all I can say. Quinn is headed to Florida. He’ll be our eyes and ears. If we’re lucky—it’s all over. If not. We’re not—and JFK’s not—what I’m saying is—we don’t know. Right?”
The others nodded.
“So,” continued Currant, “let’s get to work.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out four ear bud devices, and passed them around. Nonchalantly as possible they each placed them into their ears. Emma looked around but none of the other reveling passengers seemed to be interested in their group. Dr. Currant pulled out the little disk that Quinn had retrieved from Vallee’s apartment. He used his thumbnail to depress a micro-switch located in the edge of the recording device. At that same moment each of the ear buds were sound-activated. “This is the first time for me so let’s go through it,” said Currant as he fast forwarded the unit past the initial conversation between Vallee and Cain; then past hours of nothing but refrigerator sounds, television shows and Vallee snoring; then past the conversation between the two men who broke into Vallee’s apartment and found the guns the day before the “big event”; then finally, he nodded.
He listened for a while and then backed it up and stopped the recording. “I think this must be Saturday morning, November 2nd, just after his arrest. Listen. It sounds like two men and Vallee.” They all listened more intently. The wheels of the train clicked out a rhythmic background. The voices of their partying fellow travelers seemed to fall quiet as the time travelers focused on the recording.
“OK. Tommy boy. You and I will sit while Larry checks out your pad.” The recording was clear. Even the sounds of doors being opened and closed could be heard in the background.
Very shortly, another voice is heard. “So what have we here? Thinkin’ of startin’ another war Tom? This is pretty heavy weaponry for plinkin’ rats in the alley.”
A long silence passed before Vallee spoke. “I—I worked as an instructor. It’s part of the work I did. You know. I worked with the government. That’s why I have these.”
“That’s Vallee,” Currant mouthed the words quietly for the others listening.
“So he’s a government man, John. How ‘bout that?”
“I’m impressed,” replied the other. “Look Tom, we don’t give a shit about your Korean War record. But we are very concerned about the here and now. About you mouthing off about JFK. You’ve got guns and ammo. You don’t like Kennedy and he’s coming to town today.”
“Wait—I’m not talking about Korea. I’m talking about now. I’ve been working for the government to train soldiers to setup, to clean, to shoot. You know. To handle these weapons. In New York. But that job’s over. That’s it. Nothing else.”
“What soldiers?”
Silence again. “I’ll be in trouble if I tell you.”
“You’re already in a shit load of trouble my friend. If you got something to say you better say it.”
“Cubans. Right. And who ya’ workin’ for?
“I told you. The government.”
“Army, Navy, Internal Revenue?”
“I’m not sure. They don’t really tell you. But that’s why I had the weapons. OK?”
There was a long pause.
“All right Tommy boy. Let’s get you back to the station. Then we’ll work it all out. We’ll check out your story and if it makes sense you’ll be fine. But if your bullshitting us, we’re not going to like it. Got it?”
“No bull. You’ll see…”
“ Let’s get going Larry. Leave the arsenal here for the time being. I’ll get someone here to keep an eye on things. Until we check out Mr. Vallee’s story.”
When the sound of the door being shut was heard, Emma spoke. “We’ll that’s something,” she said. “I wonder if he’s telling the truth about working for the government?”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” said Currant. “I think Vallee is just a pawn in this game.”
“Right,” said Ethan. “But who’s game is it?”
“That my friend is the question of the century,” replied Currant. “I'll wash through the rest of this recording tonight and see if anything else is pertinent.”
Emma looked at Currant, “Doctor.”
“Yes...” said Currant.
“Now that we’re almost in New Orleans, can you tell us why we're going there?”
Currant smiled, “Because you and Ethan and Zak got what you wanted. Now it’s time for me. Anyway the TimeTravelle is my invention. Without it we wouldn’t be here. So that’s why.”
“He’s got a point Emma,” said Ethan.
“That may be so. But why New Orleans?”
Currant crossed his legs and leaned back locking his hands behind his head. He smiled. “Actually, I’ll be visiting a little town just north of New Orleans taking care of some old business. While I do that, you three will have some time to meet the locals and see what life in the Deep South is like. These are interesting times.”
Emma glanced at Zak. He smirked and signed to her: “Maybe he’s going to check out an old high school girlfriend.”
“What’s that?” inquired Currant suspecting he was the subject of a silent discussion.
“Um,” she paused. “Zak says ‘he’s dying for some gumbo’.”
“I’ll bet. Man after my own heart,” said Currant.
After a full day's travel, they exited the train in the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal. The footfalls and voices of hundreds of rushing travelers bounced off the terrazzo floor, overlapping and echoing into a solid wall of background sound. The four time travelers walked quickly toward the taxi area. Once outside the terminal they were hit by blazing sunlight and a wall of humidity subdued only by the moderate temperature.
“Little sticky. But a lot nicer than Chicago,” Ethan proclaimed to the group.
“Just how I remember it,” said Currant. “Like you’re always wearing a cheap wool suit soaked in sweat.” Taking charge, he swiftly pushed his way to the front of the confused crowd and hailed a cab. “Let’s go,” he shouted. They piled into the super-sized 1960 Pontiac, and a ten-minute ride brought them to the front of the French Quarter hotel. It was too early get into their rooms. They decided to have something to eat at a nearby restaurant.
Across the dining table, Emma surveyed the faces of his fellow travelers. Ethan looked like a caged tiger. He attacked his food lustily. Zak savored his gumbo, working it down patiently. And Dr. Currant was a man in his element. He looked relaxed, and somehow younger. The authentic smells and sounds of his boyhood home seemed to have transported him back to a more peaceful past. He smiled.
“Somewhere. Very close to this place. In this moment. I am, or should I say the ‘little me’ is near here.”
“Are you excited?” Emma asked.
“I am excited,” said Currant. “I feel like I’m eight again.”
“What about us?” Zak asked and Emma translated.
“You’re on your own for a few hours. I’ve got some legwork to do. I’ll be back later tonight. We’ll have some fun for a couple of days and Monday morning we go to back to work. Anyway, I may have a good follow-up lead. I know of a man who might have been training Cuban rebels in this arena. Just like our friend Vallee did in New York.”
“This thing’s not over is it?”
A.C. sighed then replied. “Maybe not Emma. I’ll know more when I talk to Quinn again.”
The mention of Quinn’s name reminded her, the deadly game continued. JFK was still a hunted man. And rather than being the Four Musketeers, the time travelers were more like four blind mice. They no longer had superior knowledge. They had no great powers. They were just three young people and an old man traveling in the most foreign of places—the uncharted past. At least in Chicago they could dovetail quietly into known events. They had the potential of delicately unraveling the fabric of time. Now they were operating in the dark. They had no idea what was going to happen next. The only thing they knew for certain was that they must protect their secret identities. Therein lay the most danger for them. MOM would be outraged by the Chicago outcome and she too would be in the hunt. They had saved JFK. Now they only had a few days left to help keep him alive. She hoped the president’s awareness of the Chicago assassination team would make him go into a protective shell—no more open-car motorcades—no more glad-handing campaigning in crowds. But she knew better. The man was a politician. Politicians don’t hide. They shake hands and kiss babies. The bad guys knew this too. It almost seemed predestined. It seemed hopeless. “We’re lost in time now aren’t we?” she said. “The only way we could know the future now is to return to 2028. Maybe we should do that.”
“No. Sorry Emma,” said Currant. “This is it. The more we use the equipment, the greater the odds that they well track us down. Especially now. I’m sure we’re on MOM’s most wanted list. We have one chance to make things better and this is it. Anyway I have a feeling we are in the right place at the right time.”
Currant departed after lunch and the Twins and Zak toured the town and then, at Emma’s request, went to a see a movie. But it was Zak’s turn to pick. His choice—The Nutty Professor. This was in honor of their ‘nutty Prof’—A.C. Currant. Ethan secretly knew that his sister would love this choice. All her French friends were still trying to live down France’s mid-century fascination with Jerry Lewis. She would be the only movie buff in the year 2028 that had ever seen it in the year of its release—the only one to monitor the reactions of the intended audience—the only one to know if people really laughed at Lewis. Was he a comic genius? Or was he only funny to a 1960s Frenchman? A notch in her gun, he thought. She’ll be one up on all her other friends in her “Flick Chicks” movie-watching club. The girl loved her movies. As they sat in the darkened New Orleans theater, they found themselves laughing aloud at the Jekyll & Hyde story. The Frenchmen were right thought Ethan. Lewis was brilliant and funny. And his nerdy Julius Kelp Jekyll-character bore a striking resemblance to the Dr. Currant. His other persona, Buddy Love, looked a lot like Currant after a few Johnny Walker scotches—debonair with a touch of debauchery. A.C. was right. We're on our own. It was fun becoming engrossed again in the comedy—a good respite from the rigors of detective work.
Joell Costas knew this might be his last chance to fix things. His time was running out. He was in the twilight of a great career. Even though his personal light was dimming, he remained the consummate professional. He wanted to handle this case on his own. Before he left for the year 1963, the talk of sending others to assist rankled him. He always worked alone. He always got his man. He didn’t need any help—no matter what. He looked around his shabby, cheap hotel room in the west Loop. It wasn’t pleasant. But it was a “no questions asked” residence—a base of operations that would attract no attention to him or his mission. It was his job to find the time travelers. He had no idea who they were or how many. He
knew their presence would betray them eventually. Anomalies—things that didn’t fit—natural errors of one kind or the other could trip them up. But Chicago 1963 was a big, sprawling, mass of humans all blindly unaware of the intrigue and deception in the air. JFK was still alive, thought Costas, but not for long. He would die as The History stated. He would be a great martyr slain by a mentally unbalanced assassin—nothing historically unusual about that. It was Costas job to make sure that nobody tinkered with the facts.
A stiff, cold November breeze sifted through a cracked window that offered a dirty patchwork view of the tops of downtown buildings. Costas ignored the “reality” and concentrated on the “map”. He sat quietly on a beat up wooden chair facing a small table. A yellow legal pad, and a couple of weeks of old newspapers lay in front of him. The point of his pen rested lazily at the top line of the ruled paper waiting for direction. He knew Chicago was a done deal and he assumed the time travelers would think the same. For the moment, JFK was saved. It was possible they could return to the future and have the new history revealed to them—they could make adjustments and make another attempt to save JFK— but the massive use of energy might be spotted. The Office of Anomalies was on full alert. Traveling in time again would greatly increase their risk of being caught. He guessed they would not take such a risk
He scanned the newspapers looking for something—anything out of the ordinary—something to provide a lead. Finally he hit on it. A small article in the Daily News from November 1st. The headline read: Cab Takes a Dive into Lagoon. A taxicab with two passengers and the driver, Ralph Buford had crashed through a barrier on Lake Shore Drive and sunk to the bottom of a lagoon harbor. Something seemed wrong with this one. Passengers were unidentified. It was a few miles from Thomas Arthur Vallee’s apartment. It happened the day before JFK was scheduled to die. The article stated it was the first time in history that a cab had gone into the lake. Highly unusual, thought Costas—a start. Costas left the hotel and walked back into the Loop. He wanted to talk to Buford.
