heard it – a voice in my mind.
“Scott Jones, this is James Finch from History Tours, Inc. – can you hear me?”
“Yes,” I said, perplexed. “What’s going on here?”
“Excuse me, Sir?” asked the soldier to my right.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Mr. Jones, you do not need to vocalize your responses to me. Just think, and I will get the message.”
“Oh,” I thought. “Okay. Um, can you get me out of here? It looks like they’re going to start fighting soon – I can see the front lines up ahead. I’m not prepared for this!”
“Mr. Jones – can I call you Scott? Great. Scott, please remain calm. We’re working to restore you. We’ve experienced some technical difficulties, but we are getting them resolved.”
“Technical difficulties? I thought these excursions were guaranteed safe! Who are you? I want to speak to your supervisor!”
“As I said, my name is James Finch. I am the Senior Vice President of History and Technology. I report directly to Mr. Laurens, president of History Tours, Inc. He is currently abroad, but we are flying him back right now. You are correct, Scott, we do have a safety guarantee; however, it can be voided by clients who either violate behavioral guidelines or cause damage to our systems rendering the errors out of our control.”
Flying the president of the company back?
This must be serious.
My horse lumbered along, drawing closer and closer to a line of Continental soldiers who appeared to be setting up a siege.
“What,” I thought, “what damage have I caused to your systems?”
“Our organic computer’s central processor has had an allergic reaction to something in your body’s biology. We’ve determined it is all the mac-n-cheese byproduct in your cells. Apparently, you’ve metabolized ten times the lethal quantity of a preservative called heliodextrin-P. It’s wreaked havoc on our quantum distribution systems.”
“Sir,” said the soldier to my left. “We are awaiting your orders.”
“What do I do?” my mind screamed to James Finch.
“Tell your men to halt and stand by. Then gently tug the reigns of your horse and say, whoa.”
I did as I was instructed, trying to keep my voice even. My officers stared at me expectantly. My horse shuddered, letting out a low whinny.
“Okay, now what?”
“Just stay calm. We’re trying to make corrections to the chrono algorithms, but certain strains of time are shifting slightly, making the retrieval process tricky.”
“I don’t want technobabble, I just want out of here! How long until I can come home?”
My horse bucked, throwing me backward. My arms shot out to try to maintain balance, but all I saw was the gray sky as I fell to the ground, my back crunching with the impact.
The spooked mount sidestepped and crushed my chest with an ironclad hoof.
I gasped in pain, but had no breath. I saw stars and felt searing heat throughout my upper body.
“General!” cried out one the officers.
“Is he alive-live-live?” asked another voice.
Then the blackness came once more.
For a split second, I thought I was dead, but then felt that familiar swirling sensation as my consciousness was once again shuttled through time and space.
The elimination of that pain in my chest came as a great relief, though I wondered what peril I would face next.
And I wondered what happened to the great George Washington – had I killed the man?
“Mr, Jones,” the voice said, moving all around me in a spiral of sound, “Mr. Jones, can you hear meeeeeeeeeeee?”
“Yes – yes, but you sound weird – what’s happening?”
The blackness remained – I was still disembodied.
“Our systems . . . time line . . . compromised . . . streams are shifting too fast . . . we –”
The light blinded me.
I shielded my eyes.
With a woman’s hand.
Now who was I?
“Mrs. Thatcher, are you quite all right?”
Thatcher? She wasn’t on my list.
Sudden blackness again.
Now more light, and heat.
A hot summer sun beat down upon my back, coming through an open window. Before me, a canvas, a half-painted portrait.
Beyond that, a woman who looked remarkably like –
– the Mona Lisa.
I stumbled forward, knocking over the easel and puncturing the canvas.
“Signore da Vinci?”
From my vantage point on the floor, I saw the woman step toward me.
Blackness again.
This was out of control.
“Mr. Jones! This is Mr. Laurens, President of History . . . this may be our last . . . you must . . . the chrono-variants are losing cohesion . . . random results –”
“What? What are you saying to me?”
“. . . complete degradation of the time core. The changes effected are too drastic. Our technology cannot sustain these alterations to history. I’m sorry, Mr. Jones. We will endeavor to leave your consciousness intact, in a relatively insignificant personage.”
“You’re going to abandon me? Why?”
“. . . too far gone. Again, we are so sorry. Goodbye.”
The blackness turned to dark gray, then to light gray, then to drab stone-colored walls.
A prison cell.
In my hands, a book.
The words swam, shifting in my vision from what looked like German to what seemed comprehensible.
Mein Kampf.
What kind of weirdo sat around in jail reading Adolf Hitler?
I flipped forward a few pages.
Blank.
I wasn’t reading it – I was writing it.
I reached up and felt the narrow moustache on my upper lip.
Trembling, I stood.
“Guard!” I yelled in German.
“Herr Hitler?” said a young guard, stepping toward the other side of the bars.
My stomach lurched, my heart sank, and my head swam.
“Nothing, nothing,” I said in German, waving my hand and shuffling back to sit on the cot.
If I knew my history – and I did, since I’d had plenty of time to study during my six years of waiting for this disastrous trip – it was 1923. Soon, Hitler would be released, and not long after that, he’d begin his rise to power.
The gentle buzzing in my head – the one associated with being tethered to my future – to my reality – was gone.
I was cut off.
Alone.
Stuck inside Adolf Hitler.
So much for History Tours ditching me in some insignificant peasant somewhere, sometime.
I lay back on the cot, suddenly very tired.
I started to feel weak.
My arms were heavy.
I was paralyzed.
No! Not paralyzed – I was slipping back, losing control, returning to the status of tag-along.
My body sat up and resumed writing the book – but it was not me doing it now – it was him.
He’d taken control again.
This was a nightmare. Was I to spend the next twenty-odd years living the life of this monster? Condemned to watch, first-hand, as he wreaked havoc, death and destruction on the world?
I couldn’t bear the thought of riding along in the subconscious mind of this brutal dictator, aware of everything he was doing – the sights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes, the whole nine yards – but unable to affect him or anything he was doing or thinking.
Watching helplessly as he murdered fourteen million people.
I strained my thoughts, pushing outward with all my might.
I focused all my life energy on one thing – moving his hand.
I struggled hard, and it hurt me deep inside a place I didn’t know existed.
Nothing was happening.
I forced harder, reaching to the extremes of my mental strength.
/> And I did it.
His pen slipped, making a stray mark on the page.
“Scheisse!” Hitler muttered under his breath.
Yes!
I tried again. The hand trembled slightly, then shook more violently. Finally, he slammed the pen down, rubbed at his face, and lay back on the bed, rubbing his eyes.
I forced his eyes to scan the room.
He shook his head roughly, sensing something was wrong.
I made his eyes fall on the sheets. Then the exposed pipe overhead.
Yes, that should work.
I forced his body to sit up, straining with all my might against his will. I could sense the confusion in his mind as I stripped the bed and wound the sheets into a long rope and tied a noose.
I compelled his legs to step up on the cot.
Pressed him to place his head through the noose.
And urged his resistant legs to jump off the perch.
With a frenetic lurch, it was done.
Goodbye, Fuhrer.
As the last of life swiftly ebbed away, I thought I heard a distant voice in my head.
“Mr. Jones . . . it’s a miracle. We’ve fixed it . . .”
THE END
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