Amok leaned his weight against the body and twisted the knife, felt the body tense and rise up, then go limp. Amok stared into the blank eyes, wide with fear and the comprehension it was dead, and felt the warm viscous fluid seeping from the wound in the body’s torso, somewhere just beneath the sternum. One hand on its shoulder, the other still on the hilt of the knife, Amok took a step back. When the body tipped forward, he performed a combination sidestep and pirouette, exchanging places with the corpse, and gently assisted it, as if it were a lover, to a prone position on the floor.
The date was November 8, 2041, a critical date in Amok’s past. On this day — a day the dead man on the floor lying beneath Amok would refer to as his present but which Amok would call his own past — the dead man had traveled back in time to 1941, to a date which they each could lay claim as their past, driven by the same mission as Amok’s: to change history…
“Of course,” Cassel told him, “in all likelihood, you will not survive. You’re free to refuse; yet if you agree, and you succeed and survive, you will be a free man.”
“I have your word?” Amok asked.
“You won’t need it. But if you want it, you have it.”
“Why me?”
“I presented my requirements to those in charge of this facility and your name appeared at the top of the list. It helped that I’m somewhat familiar with some of the environmental treatises you wrote in your youth— I’ve little doubt that in another era you’d have enjoyed much notoriety as a writer. I think I can help you to achieve some measure of success.” Cassel paused. “The life you took was accidental. Others here serve sentence having committed far worse transgressions, even as others walk free, and crimes committed in the name of survival will escalate as Man’s days as the dominate species dwindle.”
Amok nodded, although he understood little; Cassel took the movement as acceptance and launched into his pitch.
“In 2041 the empire Hitler vowed would last 1,000 years was nearly a century old. Fascism exists on hate, and so after elimination of the Jews, in short order the Poles, Estonians and Latvians were exterminated.”
“That’s not the history they teach in school,” Amok said.
“Of course it isn’t,” Cassel said, “because we’re living an alternate reality.”
Amok only stared at Cassel.
“It was then that a rogue group of scientists, recognizing the acumen in diversity, embarked upon a plan to change history. They sent a genetically enhanced being back in time to mere weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to implement a conspiracy to allow the raid on Ford Island to take place, hoping that the premeditated strike against a world power would stir them to action, thereby assuring Hitler’s demise. The plan succeeded, setting the table for the end of Mankind, which is certain to occur within our lifetime.”
Amok understood that many revisionists viewed the Allied victory in World War II as the beginning of the end. By the end of the 20th century, absolute power succeeded in corrupting absolutely the twin political parties of the United States. The population was immersed in accumulation of wealth and materials. The government seized on this and, under the guise of protection, began robbing Americans of their rights, which included denial of truth and the destruction of individual rights.
With the new century came a new war. Not fought for gain of land or resources, this war was instead fought for ideals; and so George W. Bush, behind the mask of champion of human rights, commenced a Crusade against Islam. And the might of a world power made him right.
A nation blessed with resources continued to be unmindful of waste. The planet cried out: earthquakes increased, in numbers and severity, global warming escalated, weather began to change. By the middle of the century rising temperatures and changes in precipitation increased forest susceptibility to fire, disease and insects. The quality and quantity of drinking water diminished, the result of rising population and increased industrial use and evaporation. By the end of the century it was too late; her injury irreparable, Mother Nature turned a deaf ear to Man.
Amok shook his head, fully aware of America’s contribution toward Man’s extinction. “Such is the nature of hindsight,” he said, “its boon as well as its bane: history shows again and again Man’s inability to learn from past mistakes. Only in the end, when it’s too late, does he see the folly of his ways.”
Amok knew his summation of Cassel’s discourse was merely a preface, backfill, to the mission in which he would be asked to participate.
Amok agreed to the mission — thwart another time traveler’s mission to enable the planet’s greatest democracy to facilitate the ultimate destruction of Man by enabling the 20th century’s most malignant dictator to prevent that from ever happening by ensuring Nazi Germany’s world domination. This was Amok’s chance to rewrite to a happily ever after ending the great cosmic novel that chronicled Man’s existence, even if it meant the extermination of millions of innocent people —Amok believed in the discipline of a strict father (a disciplined child is a conscientious child).
Akin to many famous writers who had lived prior to the end of the 20th century, Amok would enjoy his greatest success posthumously, for even if he survived he would be unable to return to his own era (for security purposes he was not permitted to carry a time travel device) to see what crop had sprung from the seed he would sow. He could only hope his name would be revered in 22nd century history books.
And so on a warm, moist morning in early April, Amok felt the effects of time travel wash over him: a slight tingling in his extremities, blurred vision, nausea.
A moment after Amok disappeared, Cassel sat, anxiously awaiting the effects of the machine he had set into motion, contemplating that while Hitler had indeed been evil, he at least had been honest concerning his goals — John F. Kennedy, he thought, LBJ, Nixon, the Bush tandem: there is no greater evil than evil masquerading as good. It never occurred to him that the more things change the more they stay the same…
... While 100 years in Cassel’s past Amok’s last thought was whether it was true that a man never hears the shot from the gun that takes his life.
—JCG; 11/2006
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