Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

She did a Google search on the Mars mission, quickly reading the results before her. Not forthe first time in recent days her jaw slackened and dropped open.

There was an enormous space programme inoperation, co-operatively funded by the Chinese, the Russians and America. A small scientificoutpost existed on the moon, a ‘cartwheel’ space station hung in geo-stationaryorbit of Earth, a number of supply shuttles had already been landed on Mars ahead of the menen route there. The world — this world — seemedobsessed with space exploration, driven to reach out toneighbouring planets.

She dug deeper into the history of the programme.

Archived newspaper articles from 1983 described a conference of nations discussing thefunding of a ‘permanent lunar outpost’, to build an ‘orbiting missionplatform’ for ‘future projects further afield’.

She found even older newspaper articles, dating from the 1970s, a meeting of minds betweenthe Russian Premier Brezhnev and NASA’s goodwill ambassador John F. Kennedy…

Kennedy?

She looked at the name again.

Not… that … Kennedy? The one whogot shot? The president?

Her history wasn’t great. But she’d seen enough movies and read enough books tobe certain the guy died back in the sixties sometime.

She saw Kennedy’s name suddenly flash up on the CNN ticker-tape feed. A moment later anold man appeared on the screen, a very old man, frail and snowy-haired.

‘No way,’ she whispered, ‘that’s not him… is it?’

+++ Ex-president and goodwill ambassador John Kennedy extends hiscongratulations and best wishes to the Mars crew +++

Maddy stared at the old man on the screen. ‘Hang on. You should be dead,’ shesaid. ‘You should’ve died ages ago.’

But when?

She was almost certain it had happened sometime in the sixties. She vaguelyrecalled old news footage of an open-topped car, his wife wearing a pink dress in the backseat and Kennedy in a suit sitting beside her, both of them waving to crowds gathered at theroadside.

Where was that? When was that?

She remembered seeing old news footage from a shaky hand-held cine-camera…

The president’s head snaps forward suddenly, then back.There’s a puff of blood. The man slumps. The woman, his wife, panics. She’sscreaming. What’s left of Kennedy’s head is cradled in her lap. The woman looksaround desperately for help. Men in dark suits clamber aboard the car. It speeds up. Thecrowd on the roadside look confused. Some are ducking to the ground. Some are screaming likethe lady in pink… some seem to be crying…

The name of the place where this happened came to her out of the blue.

‘Dallas, Texas,’ she uttered.

She typed a search phrase into Google:

[+Kennedy +Dallas +assassination]

The search returned only one link that featured all three words. It was from a newspaperarticle dated 22 November 1963. It was an article about a ‘suspected aborted attempt onthe president’s life’. She clicked the link and a newspaper article appeared onscreen.

… a.41 calibre rifle found abandoned on the sixth floor of the School BookDepository overlooking Dealey Plaza. The man suspected of owning the gun, a Mr Lee Oswald,was later arrested at his home. He claimed to have made plans to kill the president duringhis visit to Dallas, but said he changed his mind at the very last moment. The story isfurther complicated by sightings of three strangers in the same building at the time the president’s motorcade was passing, who staff described as‘being dressed like vagrants’ and were certain had no reason to be inthere…

Maddy slapped the bench and yelped. ‘Yes!’

She knew exactly where and when Foster and the others had gone back to.

‘Found you!’ she screamed triumphantly.

1963, Dallas, Texas

The three of them watched the president’s car slowly roll past them and uptowards the overpass in the distance.

‘Information: time contamination is increasing,’ announced Bob in a calmemotionless voice. ‘Mission priority: correct time violation.’

Liam looked at Bob. ‘Um… how are we going to do that?’

‘Recommendation: kill John F. Kennedy.’

‘What?’ gasped Liam. ‘ We’ve got to killthe man now?’

Foster shook his head. ‘Not this time, Liam. Relax.’

Bob’s deep voice chimed again with an increasingly insistent tone.‘Recommendation: kill John F. Kennedy immediately.’

The old man watched the car drift slowly away from them. ‘There’ll be times,Liam,’ he said wistfully, ‘that you’ll wish time could be changed, thatthings “down river” — in the future — could be made better thanthey’ve turned out.’

‘But,’ Liam replied, puzzled, ‘we just did change things, didn’t we?’

Foster nodded. ‘Yes, but on this occasion, history corrects itself after about thirtyseconds.’

‘It does?’ Liam cocked his head. ‘How?’

They heard the distant crack of a rifle.

One shot, followed quickly by another.

Liam leaned forward, poking his head out of the window. He craned his neck to look down theroad as the vehicle swung left and headed beneath the underpass. He saw a fading plume ofsmoke coming from a wooden picket fence at the top of a grassy slope. The president’slimousine swerved. He saw the lady in the back seat, the lady in pink, scrambling over theseat to cradle her husband’s head.

‘In this training scenario, we’ve let history veer off track for less than aminute.’ Foster sighed sadly. ‘But, on this occasion, history does quitesuccessfully manage to correct itself.’ He turned to Liam. ‘Many people believedit was Oswald on his own who killed Kennedy. But there were othermen… hired contract killers ready to fire in case he missed or chickened out at the lastmoment.’

‘Information: time violation has been corrected,’ Bob announced formally.‘Mission priority: return without causing further contamination.’

Liam watched the chaotic scene down below. The panic among the gathered crowd, thepresident’s bodyguards clustering around the car.

‘Was he a good man? A good president?’

Foster shrugged. ‘If he’d been given more time, from what I’ve read inhistory books, perhaps he might have been a great president.’

Liam nodded. ‘Pity.’

‘Yes.’

‘Information: extraction window approaching,’ said Bob, closing his eyes andretrieving data from his embedded computer. ‘In exactly fifty-nine seconds.’

‘We’re going to leave now,’ said Foster. ‘Soon every building alongthis road will be crawling with police and federal agents. Bob,’ hesaid, turning to the support unit, ‘place the gun on the floor.’

He did so.

The old man led them away from the window of the sixth floor.

‘So, how do we get back, Mr Foster?’ asked Liam.

‘Any second now.’

‘Nine seconds to be precise,’ offered Bob.

Liam looked about, but couldn’t see any large cylinders of water for them to climbinto. Then, all of a sudden, he felt a puff of displaced air on his face. A yard ahead of himhe could just about make out a shimmering circular outline.

‘Automated return window is now activated,’ said Bob.

‘Say goodbye to 1963, Liam.’

Liam looked around at the storage room, the dusty stacks of school books, and heard thetearful commotion of women’s voices coming from the floor below.

‘Goodbye, 1963,’ he uttered obediently, and then followed the other two into theshimmering air, holding his nose and his breath as he stepped forward.

2001, New York

Liam felt that horrendous familiar falling sensation. Worse still, he anticipatedfinding himself floundering around submerged underwater.