The Time War Ch. 25

The Time War

By Gary LM Martin

Chapter 25: Abraham Lincoln and the Deadly Puppet Theater

The Black White Supremacists:

"Why can't we just retire to Florida?" Velma asked.

Lately Velma had been getting on Ken's nerves. He knew she had never been an enthusiastic supporter of the project, but she had gone along with it because of her love for him. But lately her tone had been changing, and she had gotten more and more negative about it. She kept nagging Ken to give it all up. All she wanted was to retire in Florida with him. Why can't he just give it up?

To Ken the suggestion was inconceivable. To give it up? The ability to change the Timeline, to help all those hundreds of millions of sorely oppressed white folk? Never!

"No," said Ken simply.

"But dear... to assassinate Abraham Lincoln... don't you think that goes a little too far?" she asked.

"What does it matter? Abraham Lincoln will get assassinated anyway whether we do the deed or not."

Velma gave him a knowing look. "The others will never accept it."

"They will," said Ken.

"Mel will never accept it," she said.

And for once, Ken sensed she might be right.

********

They were in the control room, just the two of them, Ken and Mel Watts. Thelma Kendricks was also there, but strictly to operate the controls. She had been briefed on what she was required to do. She had almost balked at first, until she saw the hard look on Ken's face. She would play her part.

Mel said, "What is this all about, Ken?"

"I have a new plan, Mel. We're going to kill Abraham Lincoln."

Mel frowned. "I don't understand. Lincoln was assassinated already."

"In 1865, right after the Civil War ended," said Ken. "We're going to kill him much earlier, in 1860."

"1860...."

"When he's first running for president. His death will ensure that his opponent, Stephen Douglas, will win the Presidency. Remember that it was Lincoln's election to the Presidency that started the Civil War, Mel. Well, in our new and improved timeline, there will be no Civil War."

"But... that means slavery will not be abolished."

"I'm sure it will," said Ken. "It will just take a little longer."

"A little longer? How much longer? A hundred years? Two hundred years?"

"But Mel, think of all those wonderful white boys who won't be killed in battle. 600,000 white men who will return to their families. Another two million who will never be injured in battle. And think of the moral stain of 600 years of discrimination against white people, wiped clean from our hands! It's more than worth the cost."

Mel shook his head. "Ken, I'm just as in favor of helping the white race as you are. But not at the expense of keeping black people in chains for another century! You're losing your sense of perspective, man."

"No I'm not," said Ken softly. He nodded to Thelma, and in seconds she activated the Binochi Corridor. Its bright light flooded into the control room.

Mel gave a startled glance at the corridor, and then back at him. "No," said Mel firmly. "I won't allow it."

"You won't allow it?" said Ken, taking a step forward.

Mel instinctively took a step back. "I paid for all this, do you remember?"

"I remember," said Ken, taking another step forward. Mel matched him as he stepped backwards, one step for one.

"You came to me with nothing," Mel said, starting to sweat as he looked back at the Binochi Corridor, which he was rapidly backing into. "I spent hundreds of millions to build this Time Shaft, this entire facility. I bankrolled your entire effort."

"For which I am eternally grateful," said Ken.

"I won't allow it," said Mel. "You've crossed the line, Ken."

"So have you, Mel," said Ken sadly. He drew a compression pistol from his pocket. Mel's eyes widened.

********

That evening, as Ken was getting ready for bed, Velma looked at him in the eye. "What did you do?"

"What had to be done," said Ken, not meeting her gaze.

Velma took him by the arms. "Ken Larson, what did you do?"

Ken spoke slowly and deliberately. "I sent him back to Harlem, at two o'clock in the morning, in 1975."

"Oh my God, Ken. You executed him," said Velma, putting her hands to her mouth. "Why didn't you just shoot him in the head, fool? It would have been quicker."

"He was going to interfere with our plans," said Ken, trying to take her in his arms.

But Velma squirmed away, and took a few steps to put some distance between him. "With your plans, Ken Larson. Not mine."

She glared at him for a long moment. "What happens if anyone else opposes your plans?"

Ken shrugged his shoulders as he started to put on his white silk pajamas.

"Will you send them away too? What if your son, our son, Jamal, opposes you? Will you drop him in Anacostia or Baltimore in the 1970's if he 'gets in the way' too?"

"It won't come to that," said Ken. "He's my son."

"He's my son too, Ken Larson," said Velma, glaring at him. "And don't you send him to no gang-banger ghetto in the 1970's. I won't stand for it, do you hear me?"

********

Jamal accompanied Ken back to the year 1860, but he had a sullen look on his face. He clearly didn't want to be there. But Ken had implored him to come. He wanted Jamal to be a part of history. "Just think, son; when we're done here we'll wipe the stain of 600 years of discrimination against white people from the history books."

"But what about the stain of hundreds of years of slavery of black people?" Jamal asked.

"Well, we'll work on that next," said Ken. "One this is done, we'll try to do something to help our brothers and sisters. I promise."

That seemed to mollify Jamal, at least a little. And so Jamal was with him when he met Charles Schumer.

Charles Schumer was a puppeteer who worked for something called "The Electrical Company", a troop of puppet artists. Except these puppets weren't operated by strings. Instead, they were sock puppets, operated below the stage, out of the view of the audience. It took Ken two days to locate Schumer, but it was worth it. He found Schumer nursing a drink in a Washington DC bar.

"Hey there," said Ken, taking a seat next to Schumer. Jamal sat next to him.

Schumer barely gave a glance to the two white men who sat next to him. Yes, white men. Ken and Jamal were wearing holomasks. For this mission, they needed to appear white.

Schumer was nursing his sorrows. His boyfriend, Jerrold Nadler, a fellow puppeteer, had just broken up with him, and he was devastated.

Ken got Schumer to open up, and "discovered" he was a puppeteer. "That's really great!" said Ken. "I used to take my boy James here to see the puppets, all the time."

Schumer nodded, barely interested. He barely noticed when Ken slipped something into his drink.

********

Two hours and 600 years later, Schumer was strapped to an interrogation chair, his mind pumped with psychotropic drugs.

The soft, cozy voice of Doctor Kevin Myrtle entered his ears. "Black people are going to steal your job."

"What?" said Schumer.

"Black people will steal your job," said Myrtle.

"How?" Schumer asked.

"Lincoln will free the slaves if he gets elected... he'll free the slaves, and some will become puppeteers," said Myrtle. "They'll work for cornbread, and eat you out of your job!"

"No!" Schumer cried.

"Yes... Lincoln will free the blacks and help them take your job!"

"No!" Schumer cried again. With all the drugs in his system, it felt like Myrtle's voice was reverberating in his head, like he was in a giant echo chamber.

"You hate Abraham Lincoln... you hate Abraham Lincoln...." Said Myrtle's soothing voice. "Lincoln must die... Abraham Lincoln must die, so your career as a puppeteer may live....."

As Myrtle's voice repeated over and over, Myrtle turned to face Ken in the observation chamber.

"How long?" Ken asked.

"With this guy?" said Myrtle dismissively. "A day. Two at most."

"Good," said Ken. He nodded with satisfaction. "We're doing more than one good deed this day. Working with a painted sock on your hand and talking out of corner of your mouth is a white man's job, and always should be."

********

John Calle noticed something unusual when he went to the supermarket one day.

Instead of using robots to bag his groceries, there were black men, wearing ripped cotton shirts. They wore metal bracelets around their ankles, wrists, and necks.

Could it be?

As Calle watched, a supermarket supervisor snarled, "Get back to work, boy!" and then the neck circlet of one of the black men glowed. The black man yelped in pain, and said, "Yes, Massa!"

Somehow, slavery had returned to 25th century Florida.

********

"Thank God for anti-time dusting!" said Reynolds, as Calle explained what had happened once he had returned to the Continuity Service's underground base. "I also was outside when it happened," said Reynolds. "If it hadn't been for the anti-time particles protecting me, I'd be somewhere with slave chains on me bagging groceries for some white girl." He glanced hastily at Sarah. "No offense meant."

"None taken," said Sarah, not taking her eyes off of twenty holomonitors as she rapidly searched through history.

"What's happening here?" Colonel Strayker barked as he entered the control room, his crystal blue eyes taking in his officers one at a time, as well as an Indian woman with long black hair and proud buttocks who was bending over as she poured nuclear tea for Daniel Acton.

"It seemed slavery never ended in America," said Sarah. "I have traced it back to the election of 1860. When Congressman Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, Stephen Douglas was elected President. He forged a grand compromise where slavery would be decided on a state by state basis. As a result all the southern states kept slavery in place, while all the northern states abolished it." She paused, reading from a holoinput. "Except for Vermont. Vermont decided its own population was too white, and so imported slaves to increase diversity."

"According to the history that we know, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated after the Civil War," said Strayker.

"Correct, sir," said Sarah. "But in the current version of history, Lincoln was assassinated before he was elected President."

"Where?" said Strayker, his eyes shifting impatiently.

"Checking," said Sarah. All was silent for a moment until she said, "In a place called Cadillac Theater, in May 4, 1960. Congressman Lincoln was attending a puppet show, sir."

"A puppet show?" said Strayker. He turned to Reynolds. "Major, would your men like to attend a puppet show?"

"I can't think of anything more I'd rather do," said Reynolds. His wife, Sue-Ann, had turned into an obedient slave with a metal pain collar. Reynolds didn't mind that so much, except for the fact that she had gained nearly 80 pounds. On balance, Reynolds decided he wanted his old wife back.

********

John Calle, Daniel Acton, and a half dozen Continuity Service operatives were spread out all over Cadillac Theater on May 4, 1860. All the press accounts of the murder of Congressman Lincoln stated that the shooter was never found. But they had to locate the shooter in order to save Mr. Lincoln.

But Daniel wasn't focused on finding the assassin, as the others were. Instead, he was fascinated by the man in the booth with Abraham Lincoln. "I think that's Joshua Speed," he whispered.

"So?" said Calle, his eyes roaming the crowd. "Who's that?"

"President Lincoln's boyfriend," said Daniel.

Calle raised his eyebrows. "President Lincoln was the first gay President? I thought Barack Obama-"

"No, it was Lincoln," Daniel hissed. "Of course, it wasn't publically known at the time. Those things were kept quiet. But Lincoln was known for sharing a bed with a friend of his named Joshua Speed. I think that's him."

Calle looked up at the man sitting next to Lincoln, who also was bearded and wore a black top hat. The two looked almost like twins. Could that man really be Abe Lincoln's boyfriend? Calle tried to imagine the bearded Abraham Lincoln, rubbing his beard sinuously against Joshua Speeds' beard, while sticking his tongue inside of Joshua Speed's open mouth-

Calle quickly shook his head. Now was not the time to get distracted with thoughts of homoerotic Abraham Lincoln imagery.

The curtain lifted, and the puppet play began. Calle, on the lookout for the assassin, barely paid attention to it, but it seemed to revolve around a trio of hand puppets. One of them was called Hermit the Toad, another was Foggy Bear, and the third was Miss Jerky, a female pig. Apparently there was some kind of love triangle where Hermit the Toad and Foggy Bear were competing for Miss Jerky's affections. Calle barely listened but noticed that Miss Jerky had a really irritating high pitched voice.

And then a shot rang out, and Abraham Lincoln clutched his chest, and fell headfirst out of his balcony seat.

Calle looked around, but there was no sign of a shooter.

********

Sarah copied that moment of history into a pocket of time, as if it were a ride in Straykerland. They watched the assassination seven different times, from all different angles, but saw no sign of the assassin. The killer wasn't in the main audience, so it seemed; he wasn't in one of the other balconies; and he wasn't in the actual booth with Congressman Lincoln himself, or the catwalk above the stage. So where could he be?

Even Sarah, who had an eye for detail, as a Passive Observer, couldn't figure it out.

Colonel Strayker, of course, wouldn't accept failure. He was wearing his high collared severe looking plum colored suit jacket, and glared at them all. "Seven times! You've viewed this seven times and still can't find the assassin! Are you all blind?"

It was Erica Green who finally spoke. "Sir, maybe there's another option. Why don't we simply persuade Lincoln not to attend this theater date?"

Strayker considered, then nodded.

And so they tried. They couldn't get close to Lincoln personally, of course. But they tried to convince Lincoln's spokesman and senior aide that the middle of a campaign was not the time to attend a puppet theater showing. But since the Continuity Service was unable to tell the aide the reason why, they were unable to convince him.

After that failure, Calle decided they needed a little outside help.

********

"Uh... uh... uh....." said Sharice Robinson, as she bounced up and down on Calle's male sex organ.

Sharice was on top this time. Her white breasts were bouncing in every direction, like rubbery sacks with a softball in each one. The fact that she had bleached her breasts to be totally white made her look odd, in contrast to her normal light-black skin complexion. It was as if Sharice had gotten a breast transplant, sticking white breasts on her black body. It didn't help that she had dyed her pubes bright white either. She looked... odd.

"Ohhhh, I can feel your sexy small white dick in me, John," Sharice said in a low voice, as she continued to ride his shaft. "Fill me, John, fill me with your white cum. Put a baby in me, John, put a baby in me right now!"

And as she clamped down harder on his organ, Calle felt himself releasing into her. He couldn't help it. Despite his reservations about Sharice, physically she was a gorgeous female specimen, with a gorgeous face and heavy breasts, regardless of their coloration. But Calle felt a secret wave of satisfaction as he flooded into her. He would not be making any babies with Sharice, not today or ever. He had taken a testicle blocking pill, actually, two of them, one for each testicle, and his sperm wasn't potent enough right now to impregnate a moth, much less a fully sexually mature black woman.

Afterwards, they lay side by side. "That felt so good, handsome," she said, rubbing her wet nether lips. "I can just feel it inside me, making a baby. I'm fertile, you know," she said, giving him a sly glance

But I'm not.

"Sharice, I need something," said Calle.

"I thought I just gave you something, Sugar. Or rather, you just gave me something," she grinned. Sharice was beautiful when she smiled. If only she wasn't so madly in love with white people, perhaps Calle could have fallen in love with her.

"I need to know who shot Abraham Lincoln."

Sharice gave Calle a hurt look. "I thought you called me here for my body."

Careful.

"Of course I did," said Calle. He reached out and hugged her, so his pubis touched hers. He felt sexual attraction and repulsion, all at the same time. Why did she have to like white people so much? It frustrated him intensely.

"But I also need to know who shot Lincoln. You've seen how it's affected our present, haven't you?"

"Maybe," said Sharice.

So she had. "Sharice, black people are still slaves in the 25th century."

"Ken said he never intended it to last so long. He said he's going to fix it-"

"Sharice," said Calle. "We both know that's not true. It's gone too far. It all has."

Sharice bit her lip and looked up at the ceiling. Then she said, "I don't know."

"Sharice-"

"I mean it, John!" she said. "Ken kept me out of this one. I don't know why. It's not that I won't help you, but I can't. I really don't know who the shooter is."

"Is there anything you can tell me that might be helpful?" Calle asked.

Sharice crossed her arms over her white bosom and thought for a moment. "We... we brought someone back from the past. For mental conditioning. I never saw him. But when someone asked Ken about it, he grinned and said, 'We're making it safe for white people to work with socks forever'. Does that mean anything to you?"

Calle thought about it. Possibly.

It was only a day later (subjective base time), when they got an anonymous message from another source, did it all make sense.

*********

The toad did it.

Calle went back to the pocket of time they had copied from the actual event, and stood on stage, looking directly down. He could see the three puppeteers now, though from his vantage point they could not see him.

There was one puppeteer for Hermit the Toad, one for Foggy Bear, and one for Miss Jerky. Calle noticed that Hermit the Toad had an exceptionally deep mouth... and inside of it, when he looked closely, he could see the muzzle of a pistol.

Calle still jumped when he heard the shot ring out, and saw the tiny cloud of smoke waft off the toad's mouth, and again saw Abraham Lincoln clutch his chest and fall from the balcony.

But finally, they had their answer. After that, it was a simple matter of intercepting the puppeteer, and restoring the timeline. When Calle returned to his supermarket the following day, he was relieved not to find black people in chains bagging his eggs and bananas for him.

********

"Did you enjoy your time with him?" Ken asked, as Sharice entered the control room through the Binochi Corridor.

Sharice's eyebrows went up.

"I hope so, because it's your last," said Ken.

Sharice still said nothing, but perhaps her expression said it all.

"I've been having you followed for some time," Ken explained. "I'm disappointed, but not surprised, Sharice. Somewhere along the line, you let your sympathies get the better of you. You forgot that we are supposed to love white people, but not fall in love with them. It can be a narrow distinction, but it is also a most important one. Dial her up, Thelma."

Thelma Kendricks, with an apprehensive glance, shut down the Binochi Corridor, and then reactivated again. Sharice suddenly felt the heat and light of it behind her. "What... what are you going to do with me?" she asked.

"Nothing brutal. Nothing intolerable," said Ken. "I recognize your long service to us. In fact, if it's white penis you want, I'm going to send you to a place where you can get as much as you like. How does that sound?"