Dark Corners

The Dreyfuss Affair

10:08 PM, 14 April 1865

The war was almost done. As the news of General Lee’s surrender five days before continued to displace the gray numbness of four bloody years of death and destruction, the streets of Washington sank further and further into an orgy of celebration. It was true that General Joseph Johnston, commanding the last complete rebel army in the field, had yet to surrender, but the rumor had it that General Joe was in old Jeff Davis’s office that very night preparing to send up the white flag. The President had been waiting all day for the news. It was just a matter of time.

Sergeant Dye, sitting guard outside Ford’s Theater that night, contrasted in his mind the merrymakers on Tenth Street against how old Abe Lincoln had looked the previous hour as the president and his party had climbed down from the carriage and passed through the crowd. The tall man looked bent, his homely face had been filled with an incredible sadness. He looked less like the victor and more like the vanquished.

The sergeant shrugged his shoulders against the damp chill and the pungent odor of wood smoke and let his attention wander next door to the happy sounds coming from Taltavul’s. He had seen the famous actor John Wilkes Booth enter the saloon a short time before. The soldier passed his tongue over his lips and contemplated how a hot rum would go down at that moment. There was nothing going on right then and it wouldn’t take but a minute. Just then, however, the actor emerged from the front of Taltavul’s and stood talking with a man whose face Dye knew, the theater’s costumer, Lewis Carland. A man the sergeant didn’t recognize lit a pipe and joined the conversation. They were talking theater, and the sergeant felt a touch of contempt. The stage, he thought, is a silly place filled with silly people.

A fourth man came down from F Street and asked the trio the time. The man with the pipe looked into the lobby of the theater and said “After ten.” The questioner continued down the street and Sergeant Dye recognized him as a singer at Ford’s named Hess.

Drunken singing came from across Tenth Street and the distant sounds of fireworks and band music threatened to tease Dye from his post. The sergeant was impatient for the end of the play when he could go off duty and join the celebrants.

The performer named Hess returned and again asked the time. He explained that he was to go on just before the final scene and join two other singers in performing the new song by Professor Withers, “All Honor to Our Soldiers.” Booth laughed uproariously at this comment, and Sergeant Dye concluded that the actor was quite a bit in his cups. There was no shame in that. The entire city was drunk.

From the direction of F Street came another man. He stopped and joined the conversation, concentrating his attentions on the actor. Dye recognized Captain Williams of the Washington Cavalry Police. “Mr. Booth,” said the Captain, gesturing toward Taltavul’s, “would you do me the honor of allowing me to buy you a drink?”

Booth pulled out his pocket watch, checked the time, and shook his head. “Keene will be onstage in a minute and I promised to take a look for her.”

Another admirer approached from the direction of E Street and he stopped next to Captain Williams and seemed to study Booth for a moment. The man was clad in riding boots, as was Booth, however he wore dress more suited to the west than to the streets of the District. He was a tall lanky man, young and well built, with a clear face carrying few years. Beneath the brim of his western hat he had dark hair and eyes that seemed to glitter. “Wilkes Booth?” the man inquired.

The actor and his friends seemed highly amused at the admirer’s question. It was obviously from one who had never seen the younger Booth on the boards. “I am,” answered the actor, looking up at the stranger.

The tall admirer in the western outfit slowly shook his head and said, “I’ll be damned. You really do look like Richard Dreyfuss.” Then he pulled a Colt pistol from beneath his jacket, aimed it between Booth’s eyes, and pulled the trigger. Sergeant Dye frowned as he quickly studied the faces in the gathering crowd. He searched again and again. Before the great actor had hit the ground, his tall slayer had apparently vanished. Since he didn’t want to be accused of drinking on his post, the sergeant rethought what he had seen and decided the stranger, tall as he was, had managed to slip away in the confusion. “Thank God,” he muttered beneath his breath. “Thank God the fiend wasn’t after the president.”

2:06 PM, 17 June 2080

Roger Alfred leaned forward in the water chair and looked expectantly at his therapist. “Did you watch it? Did you watch the movie?”

Isa Childs returned Roger’s glance with an expression that hovered somewhere between amusement and pity. “There you go again, Roger. Look how you’re lying to yourself. You called it a movie. No one’s used that word for a vid in over sixty years.”

Roger’s eyebrows went up as his face reddened. “That’s not what I asked. Did you watch it?Close Encounters of the Third Kind ; did you watch it?”

The therapist shrugged and cocked his head to one side. “Yes I did. Last night, in fact. It was on my viddex and, since you made such a point of the old film, I called it up and watched it. Very amusing period piece, if a little over long.” He leaned back in his chair, tented his fingertips, and looked over them at Roger. “That’s one of the reasons why I’ve called you in for this extra session.”

“Well?”

Childs held his hands out in a gesture of helplessness. “I have already told you that you bear a striking resemblance to Richard Dreyfuss. Nevertheless, the facts of reality are against you.”

“Screw reality.”

“If that’s going to be your attitude, Roger, there’s not much point in continuing these sessions.”

“All right,” muttered Roger. “Go on.”

“Look at the facts, Roger. Dreyfuss was born in 1947. If you were he you’d be a hundred and forty years old. Look at yourself. You’re not even thirty yet.”

“A hundred and forty-three.”

The therapist’s eyebrows arched slightly. “Again?”

“If I was Richard Dreyfuss I’d be a hundred and forty-three, not a hundred and forty.”

“Exactly. That vid, Close Encounters, was made over a century ago. Unless you’ve found the Fountain of Youth, you can’t be Richard Dreyfuss and you couldn’t’ve been in that vid.”

Roger flopped back into the chair and held the bridge of his nose as the sides of the chair sloshed against his thighs. “Then why can I remember the film being shot? Why can I remember who was in it? All of them. I can remember who I kissed, who I couldn’t stand. Every argument, every shining moment, every lousy single detail. Why do I remember getting the Oscar for The Goodbye Girl?”

“This is all public information, Roger. Your mind has processed these things and mutated them until they fit your current reality. It proves nothing. Doesn’t it ever make you wonder why you only remember his early films? Why don’t you remember What About Bob?, the Beverly hills down and out thing, and the rest. Did you watch What About Bob? as I asked?”

Roger nodded, his gaze cast down. “Yeah.”

“Well?”

“No, I don’t remember it. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

The therapist shook his head as he air cushioned his seat over to the window wall behind Roger and looked down upon the teeming masses of Portland, Maine sixty-five stories below. “Look at them out there, Roger. Most of them are hitched to Hell’s rocket, and most of them try to cope the best way they can. Some blot out on drugs, some do the same thing with religion, others fall into fantasy worlds and never come back. Some take their own lives, some take on the lives of those they admire to avoid having to deal with who they are themselves. There is a sad, sad world out there filled with minor Napoleons, Christs, Rambos, Mohammeds, John Waynes, Buddhas, and,” he concluded as he glanced back toward Roger, “at least one Richard Dreyfuss.”

It’s all wrong, thought Roger.Close Encounters . The pieces of the film. The stuff that was left on the cutting room floor. The stuff Spielberg whacked out and more he put back in for the special edition. That incredibly boring version that was put on TV. Have I made it all up? Is this smug fart in the chair behind me right after all?

He might be.

Roger was the only one he knew that still called farts farts. Everyone else either called them braps or pats. “Isa,” he began, but there was a tone beep that interrupted his comment.

“This is the important call I’ve been waiting for, Roger. Please excuse me,” said the therapist as he touched the armrest of his chair and answered, “Yes?”

Roger could hear nothing as Isa Childs nodded and silently screened the audio from the room. He watched the therapist for a moment, then rose from his own chair, walked to the opposite window wall, and looked out upon the polluted expanses of Back Cove. The glass on the Preble St. office tower needed cleaning and the cove was further hidden by a veil of drizzle and haze. He looked down to see the early afternoon shoppers, muggers, and druggers hurrying to get out of an increasing rain.

He frowned deeply as he thought. If it was all in his head, why did he remember Brooklyn, a place he supposedly had never been? The heartbreaks, the victories? That Oscar? If he had won it, where was the damned thing? If it was all a fantasy, then who was he? Who in the hell was Roger Alfred? He was an actor, and luckily he was doing very well in the vids. It was all that he ever wanted to do. Those familiar with Richard Dreyfuss’s work, however, were always startled by the resemblance between Roger and the actor from the previous century. It was not only a physical resemblance either. The acting styles, mannerisms, even the voices were similar.

But not exact, as the therapist had established. He had taken Roger’s voice prints together with prints from Dreyfuss’s film work, and Isa had reported that the prints didn’t match. Of course, he only had Isa’s word for that. Right then he didn’t trust the therapist very much. It was a suspicion that had grown ever so more intense over the past year. Of course, that was simply another manifestation of his “skeptic within,” according to Isa Childs. The therapist was contradicting the reality in which he wanted to hide; hence, mistrust. And he did remember grade school, high school, and college as Roger Alfred. All of that had been in Maine. It was the details that kept fuzzing over. He not only didn’t remember his first girlfriend, he couldn’t remember any girlfriends. Hell, he couldn’t even remember his parents except as some poorly drawn stick figures. To be sane, the only explanation for his mush of memories had to be time travel, and there wasn’t any time travel. It looked as though all that was left for him was the banana farm.

“Roger?”

His thoughts interrupted, Roger turned and looked at his therapist. Childs had finished his call and was standing. The man looked quite pale. “Is everything all right?”

His face grave, Isa Childs walked over to his desk and thumb triggered the print lock on his center drawer. “No, Roger, I’m afraid things are quite serious.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Not just yet.” The therapist reached into his drawer, withdrew a greenish silver weird sort of comb that seemed vaguely familiar, aimed it at Roger, and pulled the trigger. Roger felt as though a high voltage line had been thrust into his belly button.

“God damn you!” he croaked.

Childs smiled sadly and said, “Congratulations, Roger. That was a very healthy response.”

As Roger took a ragged step toward Childs, the room began growing dim. His skin seemed to tingle all over and he saw himself fall into the office’s thick gel floor covering, but didn’t feel the impact. Instead, he was carried away into the dark by a thousand invisible arms.

It was like a movie reel running in his mind’s projector frame by frame.

Time surfers.

There was the wave and the stream. Wipe to get into the wave, wipe again to go back in the stream. After years in the wave, he had chosen the stream.

He was Richard Dreyfuss!

He had been in Close Encounters! He had been there for all of those movies! The memory was vague, but at the end of it, they said they had to replace him. He couldn’t be Richard Dreyfuss anymore. He was needed elsewhere for another mission. Another Richard Dreyfuss would do What About Bob? and the rest.

Things he had done for the time wardens: things that hurt, things that killed.

The killing.

Usually, that was the job. Go back, take someone down, thereby smacking some ill defined rogue event into line with the natural stream.

That had been the ultimate horror: doing terrible things and belonging nowhere or when.

After the last time, Ophon had given him a choice. He could stay in the timewave and continue to help with their work, or they could wipe him and place him somewhere in time, away from the wave.

He was sick of it all.

He had taken the wipe.

It became clearer as the wipe faded, restoring what there was left of his normal memory, which appeared to be full of holes. Richard Dreyfuss. His task had been nothing more than to replace someone. He had been wiped and trained for that, as well. But had he been someone named X replacing someone called Richard Dreyfuss, or was he Richard Dreyfuss who had replaced an X?

Close Encounters had been the key. There were changes that had to be made to bend events in a particular direction. Somewhen, dozens of centuries in the future, there were beings from elsewhere who needed to be shown how humans regarded them, leaving aside for the moment the thousands of bug-eyed monsters from outer space flicks that had been absorbed by humanity over the decades.

There had been only one killing on that mission, an obstinate writer named Lacey. It had been enough, though. Sick of it all, at last, Richard had chosen to go back into the stream.

Locating in stream, however, had to be at a different time. Richard Dreyfuss, or Mr. X, whoever it had been, was back in his own place, the time warden had explained.

He remembered the words, but not the time warden’s face.

And there was more.

Isa Childs.

There were time local liaisons who looked after this special kind of immigrant, and that’s what Isa Child’s did in the year 2080 for what Richard used to call the time surfers.

There was the familiar plastic smell of his therapist’s air couch. Roger opened his eyes and saw the indirectly lit ceiling of Isa Childs’s office.

That was it, then. At last he had achieved emotional balance. He was happy that he had been proven right about being who he thought he was, and he was quite prepared to strangle Isa Childs.

“He’s awake,” said Childs.

“God damned right, I’m awake, you bastard!” He tried to get up but found he was restrained around the chest, arms, wrists, and ankles. “What in the hell is this?”

Childs’s face appeared above his. The therapist rolled Richard or Roger’s left sleeve and pressed an inject-pac against his upper arm. It hissed and the arm began to sting. “It’s just a precaution until you completely recover from the shockspan, Roger.”

“Richard,” he insisted as another piece dropped into place. The shockspan. It was a gadget from the far future, even beyond Ophon’s time. They were made by animated gobs of pus from another galaxy called the Gnarleys or something. “Still,” he said out loud, “I really am Richard Dreyfuss. I know it now.”

Childs faced someone else and said, “I’m afraid he’s still rather confused.”

“Those old D-70 wipes had some terrible side effects,” remarked an old familiar voice. “The ones we use now are much better. Very short lag time, complete restoration of previous identity—“

“Do you mind?” said Roger/Richard as he twisted his head around to see Dalik Ophon, the time warden, standing next to Isa Childs. A few more blocks dropped into place as he slumped back on the couch and pieced it together.

Confirmation.

He was from another time, several other times, actually, and after the Dreyfuss mission, he wanted off the timewave. He wanted time stream, a local moment, and a lifetime he could call his own. But the memory wipe and implant had been not so good, and thus the insanity of the past two years had a perfectly sane explanation.

Dalik stood over him and looked down. His face was smooth beneath a shock of jet black hair. Roger/Richard somehow remembered that Dalik Ophon was approaching two hundred years of age. Of course Ophon was from the early third millennium. Amazing, thought Roger, how quickly one can get used to reality suddenly being turned inside out.

“Roger,” the time warden began, “we don’t really have the time for you to work out your personal problems on the job—”

“Personal problems!” he exploded. “You’re the one who had these holes burned into my brain, Dalik. Besides, I’m not on the job. I’m out, quit, finished.”

The time warden slowly shook his head. “All you had was some time off, Roger. As I told you before you were wiped, if we needed you again, I’d have to come and get you.”

Roger/Richard frowned and thought back. It was all so murky. “I don’t remember agreeing to anything like that.” He rubbed his eyes and said to himself, “I don’t remember getting paid for Close Encounters . That was a lot of money, too.” Roger/Richard raised an eyebrow at the time warden. “What I do remember, turkey, is threatening to initiate an event ripple that would turn reality into a horror show unless I was retired. That’s what I remember.”

Dalik Ophon held out a hand and said, “It’s all quite irrelevant. We need you, and there isn’t any other choice. You’ll understand once it’s explained to you.”

“I don’t get it, Dalik. I was never very good at it. I get too involved emotionally. Why do you need me?”

The time warden raised his eyebrows and nodded. “True, you’re no expert killer, Roger. However, you are incredibly lucky. Remember that time when the mission called for taking out the Secret Service officer who interfered with the assassination of President Quayle? Remember how you—“

“I still want to know about Richard Dreyfuss,” demanded Roger. “What about the real Richard Dreyfuss you keep talking about? You grabbed him once before, didn’t you? Why not snatch him this time?”

“Perhaps we just did.” Dalik stood there, his eyebrows raised, until he shrugged. “Actually, there is no more Richard Dreyfuss,” answered Dalik. “He was never born.” He nodded toward Childs. “Remove the restraints. He should be sitting up for this.”

As the therapist bent to the task of opening the restraints, Roger/Richard muttered, “You geeky son of a bitch. I ought to wring your neck like a god damned chicken. I’ve been in a lot of pain and coming to you for over two years! That cost one hell of a lot of money, too!”

Child’s smiled as he finished opening the cuffs on Roger/Richard’s ankles. “And we’ve achieved quite a breakthrough, haven’t we?”

With a great deal of restraint, Roger/Richard refrained from kicking Isa Childs in the crotch.

It was something that had always been feared. Someone with timewave access and a self-appointed mission to change things would again attempt to go back to reverse or alter some core incident thereby sending an event ripple forward that would make the world a better place. Projections being the imprecise things that they were, however, the ripple might take a turn and eliminate the future altogether.

Ever since the rogue time warden, Damil Rin, took it upon himself to reverse the U.S. presidential election of 1992, the time wardens, and the world, had been suffering the consequences. Thus the absolute ban on event altering, save somehow to ameliorate the effects of the so-called “Bubba Bomb.”

This time it hadn’t been a time warden who had slipped. Instead, it was local time liaison for 1994, Peter Ryan. He was an unsuccessful television actor, part time autograph hound, and full time historian. He had gained access to the wave, had gone back to 1885 Washington, DC, and fulfilled a lifelong fantasy by preventing the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Of course, in so doing he killed a very popular actor known to be sympathetic to the south.

“You see,” said Ophon, “There was still one southern general who hadn’t surrendered his army. When the news reached Joe Johnston that a bunch of Yankees in Washington had celebrated Lee’s surrender by murdering Johnston’s favorite actor, John Wilkes Booth, it was one thing too many for him. General Johnston refused to order his men to lay down their arms. Instead he ordered them into the hills as guerrillas to begin organized resistance against the Union occupation. Lee joined Johnston a few days later, and there it was.”

It had made the troubles in Northern Ireland look like a barroom brawl by comparison, especially after the resistance spread to the north and west. Lincoln, his health failing, left the suppression of the resistance to then Secretary of War Stanton who instituted a rash of harsh measures that resembled the Spanish Inquisition.

Crippled by repression and constant terrorism, the United States of America never became the home of freedom or opportunity. In fact much of the world’s wealth and power became mired in the American tarbaby by supporting one side or the other. Eventually, with the rise of the Twentieth Century dictators, the planet became economically and politically bankrupt. Two fellows named Hitler and Stalin never did come to power. The monsters who rose in their stead, however, eventually reduced the world to militaristic horror and grinding poverty.

Roger frowned and looked up at the time Warden. “The event ripple; where is it? Things really suck in this time. Has it already passed?”

Dalik Ophon shook his head. “It’s passing through the late Nineteen Nineties right now, which is neither here nor there, because the human race became virtually extinct during the Nineteen Sixty-seven world holocaust.” He held his hand out indicating the city of Portland, such as it was. “In another twelve hours or so this won’t exist either. In another thirty hours neither will even the hope of time spanning. Once that happens, everyone loses his ticket on the ride.”

Pushing himself to his feet, Roger Alfred looked warily from Dalik Ophon to Isa Childs and back to the time warden.

“So, go back and waste Peter Ryan before he goes rogue, right? Cancel the event ripple?”

Dalik raised his eyebrows and cocked his head to one side as he held out his hands. “He’s already wiped himself out in a manner of speaking. Thanks to the ripple, he was never born and the ripple has already passed though his local time departure point. His only existence, therefore, is in the timewave.”

“Which can’t be touched by the other time surfers,” interrupted Roger.

Dalik winced. “I wish you wouldn’t refer to them as surfers. In any event, Peter Ryan cannot be touched unless we know where he is.”

Roger held up a hand, “And the only time appearance we know about is when Ryan killed Booth.”

“Exactly. It was outside the front of Ford’s Theater shortly after ten at night on the Fourteenth of April, 1885.”

“So what do you need me for? Just have one of your shooters take out Ryan before he has a chance to smoke Booth.”

“We can’t take the chance of frightening Booth by having a shoot-out in front of the theater,” answered Dalik. “It’s still necessary for John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Lincoln. The only way to assure eliminating both Ryan and Lincoln is for you to impersonate Booth.”

“And there isn’t but one way to impersonate Booth, right?” Another killing spree, thought Roger/Richard. It was everything that had caused him to take the wipe two years before. Then a thought crossed his mind. “I’ve seen pictures of Booth. I don’t see any resemblance.”

Dalik Ophon turned to Isa Childs and held out a hand. “The file, please.”

“Certainly.” The therapist went to his desk, picked up a screen board and handed it to the time warden. Dalik punched in a few numbers and handed the board to Roger.

Taking the screen board, Roger Alfred looked at a picture of a man in a squat crowned hat, long coat, and baggy trousers. He was leaning his left elbow on an urn of some kind and his legs were crossed in a cavalier pose. He had a heavy black mustache and the face upon which that mustache hung was Richard Dreyfuss’s. “I’ll be damned.”

Roger’s head went back as one of his eyebrows arched. “Just a minute. Let me get this straight. You want me to kill this Peter Ryan and President Lincoln?” The eyebrows crashed into a frown. “You expect me to assassinate Abraham Lincoln?”

“Booth as well,” added the time warden. “After all, we can’t have two John Wilkes Booths wandering around the president’s box brandishing pistols, can we? You’ll eliminate Booth and take his place, draw Ryan out and neutralize him, then dispatch Lincoln. We’ve made all the arrangements with the April 1865 liaison, Jason Wells. He’s a detective on the city police and he can snip off any loose ends you might leave behind.”

“You want me to assassinate Lincoln? Why in the hell don’t you just give me some nails and a hammer and send me back to Golgotha to tack up Christ?”

It was quiet for a long moment, then Dalik said, “It’s not like you haven’t done this kind of work before.” He turned toward Childs. “Is he all right? He seems a bit slow.”

“He’s confused. The Dreyfuss thing. He’s been thoroughly obsessed by thoughts of being Richard Dreyfuss for the past two years. Of course, he’s been wiped twice, as well, and as you implied, the D-70 wipes aren’t exactly Memorex. I’m afraid all of this is rather an abrupt change of direction for him. He might not be completely up to the task.”

“We are totally out of options,” answered the time warden. “We’re not going to wipe him for this mission. Even so, the amount of time we have left leaves us no room at all.” Ophon rubbed his chin as he studied Roger. At last he blinked and smiled sympathetically. “You’ll have to snap out of it, my boy. We can’t use you as Richard Dreyfuss. We need you as John Wilkes Booth, and soon.” He pointed at the spot on Roger’s arm where the inject-pac had been applied. “The injection contains all of the personality data and information on Booth and it should be taking effect in another minute or two.”

“I thought you said you weren’t going to wipe me for this.”

“We’re not. The data shot is in addition to your normal memory, not in place of it.”

Great, thought Roger/Richard. In another two minutes I’ll be John Wilkes/Roger/Richard.”

Dalik Ophon retrieved his screen board file and pointed toward a door in the rear of Childs’s office. That was, Roger realized, where Isa Childs kept his time stage. “Back into the timewave, Roger. None of us have much time left at all.”

9:29 PM, 14 April 1865

The world of the theater thrilled son of slaves, John Miles. Since he was not allowed to perform on stage at Ford’s, and certainly could not sit in the audience, he fed off the actors by sitting high in the flies above and behind the stage, among the suspended sets and the smells of hot gas lights and cigar smoke, watching the players. There was little to like in the comedy being performed, but the relative merits of Tom Taylor’s Our American Cousin did not concern John Miles one bit. It was the laughter of the audience that captivated him. If he could trade his life for just one night upon such a stage he knew he would do it.

The applause and cheers from the audience as the president and his party made its way through the dressing circle to his box had been quite exciting, despite the odd disappointed grumble that the real hero of the moment, General Grant, had not been with the president, as advertised.

From where he sat, Miles could not see the president’s box, which was all right with him. His real heroes were the actors, and those he could see. As the beautiful Laura Keene prepared to make an entrance, Miles heard a sound coming from the rear of the theater. He turned and looked down through the tall cathedral window at the alley below. His heart almost stopped. Although he was not in the cast of tonight’s performance, the famous actor John Wilkes Booth was standing in the dirt road of the alley looking as though he was waiting for something. The way he patted his coat pocket and jerked his head around at every little sound made him look very nervous. Well, it was well known the actor drank to excess. That sort became nervous sooner or later. Too bad, really. He was such a fine performer.

It was dark, only the one gas light illuminating the alley. It was chilly and a bit hazy as the wood smoke from countless homes mixed with the damp air.

The sounds of a horse picking its way through the dark ally made John Miles strain to see who the actor had been waiting for. The animal’s hooves rang on the stones. In a moment the mare and its rider came into the light. Miles didn’t notice as his lower jaw fell open. The rider was John Wilkes Booth! They were both John Wilkes Booth!

The pedestrian Booth reached within his coat pocket for something and pulled out a strange looking weapon that resembled a green pistol grip attached to a silver comb. At the same moment the mare reared and, quick as a shot, the mounted Booth pulled a knife from beneath his coat on his left side and threw it, striking the blade deep into the other’s heart.

John Miles scrambled down the stairs, turned a corner, and slammed into one of the stage hands, Ned Spangler. “Watch it, boy.”

“Mr. Spangler,” puffed John, “Out in back. Somebody tried to kill Mr. Booth.” His eyebrows went up when he recalled which one he had originally identified as the actor. “Maybe Mr. Booth’s the one who got killed.”

Spangler, a skeptical look on his face, cocked his head toward the stage door. “C’mon. Let’s see what you got stuck in your eye.”

Miles followed Spangler out the door into the alley. “By Jesus!” exclaimed the stage hand. “Mr. Booth, sir, what ever happened?” He turned and glared at Miles. “Hold Mr. Booth’s horse.”

John Miles got around Spangler so he could at last see. The John Wilkes Booth who had been mounted on the horse, the reins still in his hands, was turning the other over with the toe of his boot. The dead man wore the exact same outfit as the live one, down to the highly polished spurs. Without removing his gaze from the corpse, the actor handed John Miles the reins to his horse and answered, “Damned if I know, Ned.” He appeared to be almost in shock.

He squatted down to remove his knife from the dead man’s chest, but paused as something seemed to catch his eye. He reached out his right hand and picked at the corpse’s thick black mustache, identical to the actor’s. “Will you look at this.” He tore the artificial mustache from the corpse’s lip and held the object out to Spangler and Miles. “What in the devil was he after?”

“Perhaps, sir, we might instead ask what you’ve been up to tonight.” Miles turned his head back toward the stage door to see a man in his fifties dressed neatly in a brown suit and boots. He had a derby on, its brim almost covering his eyes.

Booth stood up, red faced, and answered hotly, “Make yourself clear, sir!”

The man extended the index finger of his right hand, placed it beneath the brim of his derby, and pushed the hat to the back of his head. “Detective Jason Wells, Mr. Booth, of the Washington Police. I was just wondering why a famous person such as yourself is skulking around a dark alley at this hour.”

Although he feigned anger, the actor’s face went pale. “I was not skulking. I pick up my mail at Ford’s, Detective Wells, and that is why I am here right now. Everybody knows me here. As Ned. Ask John.” He pointed down at the corpse. “Instead, you should be concerned with this one. As I rode up, this fellow was waiting and tried to kill me.”

“That’s right, sir,” said John Miles pointing at the rear of the theater. “I saw him from up in that window. He had a gun, just like Mr. Booth said. It was all green and silver. Never seen anything like it.”

Detective Wells squatted next to the body, examined it, and then placed two fingers across the corpse’s upper lip. “You know, Mr. Booth, with a mustache, this fellow could be your twin.” Booth didn’t respond, and the detective rolled the man’s upper body to the left far enough to pull his arm from beneath his back. Miles leaned over and saw that the curious weapon he had described was still clutched in the man’s hand. “What is that, sir? What kind of gun?”

“As a matter of fact,” answered the detective, “It’s a Kaddik Shockspan.”

“I never saw anything like it.”

The policeman put the weapon in his pocket. “The Gnarmyths make them.”

“Gnarmyths?” repeated Booth. “Is that a British manufacturer?”

“No,” answered Wells. “The Gnarmyths are quite a bit further away than that.”

There was an uproarious laugh from the audience inside the theater and Ned Spangler said to the detective. “I got to go and help change a set. It’ll be my job if I miss the cue. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

Wells shook his head, his gaze on the corpse’s face. “No need to come back. This looks pretty clear cut.”

As Spangler ran for the stage door, Booth held out a hand and asked, “Do you need me to make a report?”

“No, Mr. Booth.” The detective leveled his cold-eyed gaze at the actor. “You are free to enter the theater and complete your business.”

Miles saw a haunted look in the actor’s eyes as he barely shook his head and said, “No. Not tonight. This has all been rather upsetting.”

“I bet,” said the detective, a strange wry smile on his lips.

Booth took the reins from John Miles without looking at him, mounted his horse, and guided it along the alley toward F Street. As soon as horse and rider were out of sight, John could hear the sounds of the animal breaking into a gallop.

“You can go, too,” Wells said to John.

“Oh, I don’t need to be anywhere, Detective Wells, sir.”

“Well, son, maybe you ought to go someplace else. I’ve got work to do and I don’t need any spectators.”

John felt his face growing hot. “Well, sir, maybe you ought to know that John Miles is a free man who is entitled to stand on any street corner or alley in this whole city, and nobody can tell him to move if he don’t want to. They just fought a war about that, didn’t you hear?” Old habits die hard, and John threw in a belated “Sir” at the end of his speech.

The detective stood, pressed his hands against the small of his back, and stretched. “Of course, you’re right, son. That’s what the war’s about.” He removed his hands from his back, pulled back his coat, and withdrew from his belt a weapon identical to the one he had taken from the corpse. One moment the detective was aiming the silver comb end of the thing at John, and the next both detective and mysterious corpse had vanished. In the dust at John Miles’s feet there was nothing left but some footprints and a false mustache.

He bent over, picked up the mustache, studied it, and put it in his shirt pocket, vowing never to reveal to a single soul what had happened at the rear of Ford’s Theater that night. There were already plenty of people who thought he was crazy because he wanted to be a stage actor. There would be no point in giving them ammunition. A profound frown weighing down his brow, John made it back into the flies just in time to hear Mr. Hess sing the new song, “All Honor to Our Soldiers.”

“The event ripple has gone past your local time departure point, Roger. That’s why we had to bring you forward for another try.” Dalik Ophon was standing next to a woman clad in combat utilities, Shalla Inam, local time liaison for AD 2294. They stood in the tower of the Eastern Army Defense Center. Roger Alfred turned and looked through the observation port across the Potomac River. There was a great black obelisk rising from the rubble of Arlington that was the nerve center for the region’s missile defense grid. Several smoking blocks of rubble on both sides of the river testified to the imperfections of the system.

The general data screens had briefed them. The Western and Southern armies, under the command of General Julio Diaz, were moving against Harrisonburg, a hundred miles to the southwest. All projections showed the Eastern Army defenses crumbling within a matter of days. Everyone Roger could see on 23rd Street below was armed. Children were filling and stacking sandbags to protect the government defense positions.

Roger turned and faced Dalik. “I was feeling pretty terrible about fouling up the mission until I was brought here. Are you telling me this is the future we want to protect?”

“Life isn’t all sweetness and light, Roger,” Dalik Ophon responded as he came up and joined him in front of the armored observation port. “In another two years Field Marshal Angus will reestablish the North American Parliament in Montreal, the treaties between the east, west, north, and south will be signed and the prime minister will lead North America to crush the dictator of the Latin American Union. Then … things get better. It isn’t perfect, Roger, but itis the future that produced the timewave generator several hundred years later. Once the ripple reaches there, our scientists have some doubt about our continued existence, even in the timewave.”

“What about the new ripple? What are the projections now when neither Booth nor Lincoln dies?”

Dalik nodded. “I must admit things were — are improved. The extinction of the human race was put off for an additional twenty-six years.”

“What? With Lincoln left alive and Reconstruction—”

“In 1869, at the beginning of his third term in office, Lincoln went quite insane. Actually, it had been going on long before that. It only became obvious in ’69. By then, however, Lincoln was under the power of a band of unscrupulous manipulators who had sacked the south, and invaded Canada under the pretext of joining Alaska to the motherland. Britain came in, of course, and the world chose up sides, with fairly similar results to the Booth-Dies-Lincoln-Lives scenario.”

As Roger raised his gaze and let it settle on the ruins of the Lincoln Memorial, he touched the fingers of one hand to his chest. “That knife, Dalik; I just wasn’t prepared.”

“You knew he was an expert with knife, foil, and firearms.”

“I just didn’t realize what being an expert with a knife meant. He must have been twenty-five feet away. Booth couldn’t have hit my heart more to the center if he’d been a surgeon with a scalpel.” He glanced at the time warden. “I go back for another try, right?”

“Of course.”

Roger nodded and raised an eyebrow at Ophon. “Booth never showed at the front of the theater, right? That means Ryan’s been tipped off.”

“Correct. Our observers couldn’t spot him anywhere on Tenth Street. We must assume he’s onto us. He’ll probably move forward to take Booth out at an earlier time. We’re sending you in on the evening of the thirteenth. We only know Booth’s location for certain during the night of the thirteenth and at several points the day of the fourteenth. The event ripple is accelerating. In linear time we only have perhaps twenty-eight hours before time span local is eliminated. Hence, we have to move now.”

“What if Ryan goes back to a scheduled performance Booth was in a few years earlier and takes him out then?”

Dalik nodded. “That’s right. You were in the timestream when Pebbek first proposed his event vacuum theory. In short, if there was no John Wilkes Booth, events would probably be so altered that Lincoln might not have become president, or if he did the times would most likely produce another Booth. Another assassin would be wrung from the spatiotemporal pulp, as it were.”

“Theory, probably, likely—”

“As lame as it sounds to you, Roger, within certain limits Pebbek’s theory works as advertised. Certainly Ryan can’t afford to disregard it. He knows we won’t. Therefore, we can count on Ryan attempting to get to Booth at the National Hotel the night of the thirteenth. You have to get there first—”

“I know,” interrupted Roger. “Take out Booth, kill Ryan, then assassinate the president.”

“Don’t forget the fellow in the alley behind Ford’s Theater. He’s still going to be there.”

“What fellow … you mean me? I have to take out myself?” Dalik allowed the silence in the room to answer Roger’s question. “You know, Dalik, it’s coming back to me now why I quit on you the last time.” He glared at the impassive face of the local time liaison, Shalla Inam. “Why doesn’t she ever say anything?”

“She doesn’t know any English.”

“I thought you said she’s an officer in the Eastern Army.”

Dalik smiled sadly. “Oh, you thought…” He shrugged and held out his hands. “The Eastern Army comes from the East, Roger, not from New Jersey.”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” muttered Roger as he headed toward the back room where Shalla Inam kept her time stage.

11:03 PM, 13 April 1865

“Dalik Ophon and his crowd’ve managed to disable Ryan’s time stage,” said Detective Wells as the pair stood in front of the National. Despite the occasional shower, the boom and flash of fireworks combined with the laughter and singing on the street, giving a strange, festive flavor to the fear in Roger’s mouth. He was not made up as Booth to avoid attracting attention, although he did draw an occasional questioning look.

Roger frowned as he fought down the renewed conviction that he was Richard Dreyfuss, tricked, manipulated, lied to, and bullied into this role of all roles. He rubbed his eyes and asked, “So, what does that do for us? I’m sure Ryan arranged something before Dalik pulled the plug.”

The detective nodded in agreement. “Most likely. What it means, though, is that we only have to take care of it this one time. Ryan doesn’t have anymore tries.”

“Neither do we,” replied Roger, his voice flat and hostile. “Wells, how does someone from 1865 get approached to be a local time liaison?”

The large man pushed his derby to the back of his head and smiled. “It was a book, a work of adventure fiction, called Time Enough. I read it, was captivated by it, and when the advertisement in the back of the book said the names of more such works were available simply by sending in my name and address, I did so.”

“And not long after, there came Dalik Ophon knocking on your door. So he lied to you, too.”

“How so? I have gotten more books.”

Roger shook his head. “No, man, you don’t get it. The time warden’s a slimeball, every move has a hidden agenda. He’s up to his eyeballs twisting, turning, manipulating people and events to get what he wants.”

Jason Wells held a hand out toward the hotel. “Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

“Sure,” replied Roger sarcastically. “Right.”

The detective scratched his chin for a moment and frowned. “Look, Mr. Dreyfuss—”

“—Alfred,” corrected Roger. “I think.”

“You said—“

“I know what I said, Wells. What were you going to ask?”

Jason Wells shrugged and held out his hands. “Very well. If you don’t like this work, why do you do it?”

“I don’t really. I quit on Dalik two years ago.” Roger began waving a hand to try and pin down for the detective where “two years ago” was located, but Wells waved aside the explanation. “Okay, Dalik put the guilt on me. ‘Roger, the world’s going to end if you don’t go back and do the mission.’ Besides, I was very confused.”

“You’re not confused now, are you?”

Roger sneered at his companion. “I still am, but that’s not the point. It’s personal now. That bastard Booth killed me!”

Wells turned then and Roger looked to see what had drawn the man’s attention. A bellhop, his bulk forced into an uncomfortably tight blue uniform, complete with triple rows of bright shiny buttons down his chest and a pill box cap on his head, was signaling from the door. Wells nodded back and the bellhop returned inside.

“That’s my man, Groves,” said the detective. “Booth is in his room and alone. I have three men posted on his floor. Whatever happens, you’ll be alone in there. Are you going to take him with the shockspan?”

Roger nodded. “I can use that through the door if I have to. I’m sure as hell not going to duel with him with pistols or knives.”

“Very wise.” He nodded his head toward the gas lighted doors of the National. “It’s time. Ask the desk for your key. Your room is right across the hallway from Booth’s. Your key will fit Booth’s lock, as well.”

“My key? What name?”

“Your name.” The detective raised his eyebrows and thrust his hands into his coat pockets. “Well, it was your name. I’m sorry. Ask for Richard Dreyfuss’s key.”

His throat dry, his makeup as John Wilkes Booth complete, Roger left his room and stood outside Booth’s door and lifted his left hand. His right hand held the grip of his shockspan, the weapon set on kill. He took a breath, let it escape, and gave the door a quick double rap with his knuckles.

“Yes?” boomed the actor’s voice from the other side of the door.

“Fresh pillow, sir.”

“It’s about time. I can’t imagine what possessed the maid to take the bed’s pillow in the first place.” The door opened and Booth stood there, his suspenders hanging from his waist, his thick dark eyebrows raised. “Well?”

Roger raised the shockspan and Booth twisted and sprang to one side as Roger pulled the trigger, catching only the lower left quadrant of his target. The actor was dragging his dead leg as he reached for his coat hanging from the back of a chair. Roger fired twice more and watched as John Wilkes Booth fell to the floor like a load of wet wash.

Feeling faint, Roger closed the door behind him, went to the edge of the bed, and sat down, for some reason thinking about the movie, Jaws and Martha’s Vineyard, wishing he were there and back then. Killing Booth, he realized, hadn’t exorcised his personal demon. It was Ryan who needed to be killed. He was the one who had started this ball rolling.

Roger looked around the room, a chill running through his body. At any point over the next twenty-three hours Ryan could strike. He already knew one place where he would have to make a try: in front of the theater where he had killed Booth before. How many more tries had Ryan managed before Dalik Ophon managed to cut him off from the timewave? One? Five? A hundred and five? There was also the small matter of his own attempt to kill himself at the rear of the theater.

There was a bottle of brandy on the room’s dresser. Roger eyed it as he tried to make a decision between the brandy or setting his shockspan on mild stun and shooting himself in the head. Either way, it was a quick way to escape the noise in his head and get some sleep.

There was a knock at the door followed by Wells’s familiar voice calling, “Maid service.”

Roger stood, went to the door, and opened it. Behind the detective were two of his minions. They walked past Roger, picked up John Wilkes Booth’s body, and hurried out the door. “We’ll be keeping an eye on you all night, Rich — Roger,” said Jason Wells. “Get some sleep.” He held out a feather pillow and left as Roger took it.

After closing the door, Roger threw the pillow on the bed and, fully clothed, dropped onto the bed and closed his eyes, strains of Simon and Garfunkle singing the hey Mrs. Robinson song threading into his dreams.

9:29 PM, 14 April 1865

Roger shivered in the cool night air as he turned the horse onto F Street and rode toward the opening to the alley. Every nerve was strung to its limit. He had kept all of Booth’s appointments that day. It had been necessary to do so to keep the bait alive for Ryan. The plan had been to keep everything as close to the known facts as possible. Who knew what consequences might accrue if someone’s life took on a different spin because Booth didn’t get his haircut at 8:30, or was there in his room when his drunken friend, Michael O’Laughlin, called, or was himself sober at the wrong moment.

At eleven he had walked to Ford’s to pick up his mail and met there with Henry Clay Ford and the stage carpenter, James Gifford. There was where Booth was supposed to have learned that President Lincoln would be attending the performance that night with General Grant.

Later, he was there on E Street when James Ford, his buggy loaded with bunting to decorate Lincoln’s box, stopped to have a chat. From there he had gone to Howard’s Stable on Seventh, paid his bill, and arranged to have his one-eyed roan delivered to the small stable behind Ford’s Theater. Then he went across the Mall to Pumphrey’s Stable and ordered that a horse be saddled and waiting for him at four o’clock. As Booth was known to have said, Roger repeated, “I’ll be back,” and, as difficult as it was, he said it without an Austrian accent.

Back at the National he dressed, putting on his boots, spurs, his black suit and hat. He stuck the familiar long sheathed knife into his belt at his left side, and into his pockets he placed a compass, his timepiece, a gimlet, and a small brass derringer.

After dressing, he went to Herndon House, met with Lewis Paine, and discussed the plans. Paine, if he could gather enough wit, was to make his way to Secretary of State Seward’s house and dispatch the sick old man. After picking up his horse at four, Roger rode up Sixth Street to the Avenue and rode Pennsylvania to E Street, where he tied the animal to a hitching post at Grover’s Theater, went to Deery’s tavern upstairs, and pretended to swill brandy. Then he went down to the manager’s office, which was empty, and took a facsimile of Booth’s letter to the National Intelligencer, glanced over it, and sealed it. Then, still looking over his shoulder for Peter Ryan, he had gone to Ford’s.

At Ford’s Theater he had talked with an actor named Maddox, and then rode off in the direction of Pennsylvania Avenue. On Fourteenth Street he met John Matthews, another actor who Booth had once tried to enlist in one of his conspiracies against the President. Matthews had refused. Roger shook the man’s hand, as prescribed, and left him with the letter to deliver to the Intelligencer before noon the next day.

There was the chance passing of General Grant’s carriage on Fifteenth Street, and the subsequent conversation with a soldier confirming that it was Grant and that the general was on his way to New Jersey. A little later he met with George Atzerodt and discussed with the drunken buffoon his plans to kill Vice-president Johnson. Atzerodt whined, cried, and generally made Roger Alfred wonder if there had been anyone in the conspiracy that wasn’t on the sauce.

In the Alley at Ford’s he invited Ned Spangler, James Maddox, and Jacob Ritterspaugh to Taltavul’s for a drink, left them there with a bottle, and returned to the empty theater to prepare Lincoln’s box for the assassination. It was in the silence of the theater, after he had carved out the plaster for the doorjamb, and while he was making the hole in the door with the gimlet, that he thought he heard a noise. It turned out to be nothing but a cat, but it had taken Roger a full five minutes before he could complete the observation hole and get out of there and go back to the National for a rest.

The clerk at the desk had looked like Peter Ryan. Several persons along the streets had looked like him. Even one of the bellhops. At eight, Roger had met with Atzerodt, Herold, and Paine to discuss final plans. As they sat talking on horseback, the surrounding air reeked with alcohol causing Roger to wonder what shape the world would’ve taken had the first time warden gone back and rendered extinct the race of little bugs that ate sugar and excreted alcohol. That thought still teased his mind as he rode the mare down the alley, past the Negro shanties, to face himself.

He gathered his thoughts quickly, because, although the self behind the theater was no John Wilkes Booth, he did have a shockspan and he was a killer. Taking no chances, he had his own shockspan, actually the same shockspan, ready in one hand, the reins in the other.

There were so many things crowding his mind. Why hadn’t Ryan struck? Was he counting on his original appearance in front of the theater to take care of things by itself? That didn’t seem likely. Ryan had to know they’d be prepared for him this run.

“One killing at a time,” he muttered as the glow from the gas light appeared ahead. Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps in the shadows. “Who’s there?” demanded Roger as he reined in his mount, lifted his weapon, and aimed it in the direction of the sounds. After a minute staring into the darkness, Roger pressed his knees against the mare’s sides and turned his attention toward the next task. In a moment, himself, costumed and made up as John Wilkes Booth, came into view. He was reaching for his shockspan as Roger lifted his and sent a lethal charge into his own body. As the Roger Alfred beneath the gaslight dropped, the one on the horse felt something within himself die as well.

Two figures came rushing out of the darkness of the E Street end of the alley and bent over the body. It was Detective Wells and one of his men. Roger dismounted and looked up at the tall window through which the historical John Miles had seen everything.

“I got someone to send Miles on an errand,” said Wells. The detective gestured to his companion. “Let’s get going. I don’t fancy trying to explain all this to myself.” He glanced at Roger and said, “Good luck.” Then the two men and their corpse were gone.

Roger took a deep breath and called out, “Spangler!”

In a moment Ned Spangler came rushing out. “What is it, Mr. Booth?”

“Can you hold my horse for me here? I won’t be very long.”

“I can’t, Mr. Booth. I got me just too much to do.”

“Is there anyone else in there?”

“John Miles was sent off on an errand.” Spangler held up a finger in a classic eureka pose. “I know. Johnny Peanut. He don’t have nothin’ to do until the play’s over. I’ll get him.”

As Ned ran through the stage door Roger wondered if Johnny Peanut would turn out to be a tall killer named Peter Ryan. Instead he turned out to be a squat fellow whose main ambitions in life appeared to be filth and liquor. He supported himself by lighting the gas lights in the theater before performances and extinguishing them afterward. He took the reins of Roger’s mare and Roger entered the theater, removing his gloves. He nodded and grinned pleasantly to several fellow actors, and asked one if he could cross the stage behind the set. The actor shook his head and pointed toward the access tunnel that ran beneath the stage.

Roger stood for a moment in the wings and tried to see the president’s box through the haze. He couldn’t see anything, and a utility man came up beside him and asked, “Is there something you want, Mr. Booth.”

“No. I was just wondering if I could cross behind the set. I want to get to the other side.”

“No, Mr. Booth. The dairy scene is on. You’ll have to go under the stage.”

Roger headed for the passage, and once he was beneath the boards, he could hear the actors moving about, the mumble of their lines, the laughs from the audience. In a flash he was in the side alley leading to Tenth Street. He opened the alley door and peered to his right. There, beneath the gas lights, sat a lone soldier in a chair. He nodded at the man, turned, and entered Taltavul’s saloon. There he ordered a bottle of whiskey and water from Peter Taltavul, and listened as the room full of drunks toasted Union, Columbia, Grant, Lincoln, and Peter Taltavul’s bald spot.

At one point one of the drunks said to Roger, “You’ll never be the actor your father was.” Even though the barb was directed at John Wilkes Booth and not Roger, still Roger had an urge to ask the red-nosed souse if he would like Roger to stick his hand down his throat, grab his asshole and yank him inside out. He was a little on edge. Besides, there was a script.

“When I leave the stage,” quoted Roger, “I will be the most famous man in America.”

10:08 PM, 14 April 1865

Sergeant Dye shrugged his shoulders against the damp chill and the pungent odor of wood smoke and let his attention wander next door to the happy sounds coming from Taltavul’s. He had seen the famous actor John Wilkes Booth enter the saloon a short time before. The soldier passed his tongue over his lips and contemplated how a hot rum would go down at that moment. There was nothing going on right then and it wouldn’t take but a minute. Just then, however, the actor emerged from the front of Taltavul’s and stood talking with a man whose face Dye knew, the theater’s costumer, Lewis Carland. A man the sergeant didn’t recognize lit a pipe and joined the conversation. They were talking theater, and the sergeant felt a touch of contempt. The stage, he thought, is a silly place filled with silly people.

A fourth man came down from F Street and asked the trio the time. The man with the pipe looked into the lobby of the theater and said “After ten.” The questioner continued down the street and Sergeant Dye recognized him as a singer at Ford’s named Hess.

Drunken singing came from across Tenth Street and the distant sounds of fireworks and band music threatened to tease Dye from his post. The sergeant was impatient for the end of the play when he could go off duty and join the celebrants.

The performer named Hess returned and again asked the time. He explained that he was to go on just before the final scene and join two other singers in performing the new song by Professor Withers, “All Honor to Our Soldiers.” Booth laughed uproariously at this comment, and Sergeant Dye concluded that the actor was quite a bit in his cups, although his eyes seemed very wary. There was no shame in being drunk. The entire city was drunk.

From the direction of F Street came another man. He stopped and joined the conversation, concentrating his attentions on the actor. Dye recognized Captain Williams of the Washington Cavalry Police. “Mr. Booth,” said the Captain, gesturing toward Taltavul’s, “would you do me the honor of allowing me to buy you a drink?”

Booth pulled out his pocket watch, checked the time, and shook his head. “Keene will be onstage in a minute and I promised to take a look for her.” The actor made a complete turn as he checked around himself, looking for someone.

Another admirer approached from the direction of E Street and he stopped next to Captain Williams and seemed to study Booth for a moment. The man was clad in riding boots, as was Booth, however he wore dress more suited to the west than to the streets of the District. He was a tall lanky man, young and well built, with a clear face carrying few years. Beneath the brim of his western hat he had dark hair and eyes that seemed to glitter. “Wilkes Booth?” the man inquired.

Everyone but the actor seemed highly amused at the admirer’s question. It was obviously from one who had never seen the younger Booth on the boards. “I am,” answered the actor, looking up at the stranger.

The tall admirer in the western outfit slowly shook his head and said, “I’ll be damned. You really do look like Richard Dreyfuss.” Then he began to pull a weapon from beneath his jacket. Booth shouted to his companions, “He has a gun!”

Captain Williams and Booth wrestled the man to the ground, and the actor took a swing and knocked the man senseless. With the would be brigand limp on the ground, a small crowd seemed to gather. One of the men was a large man in a derby hat. “I’m Detective Wells, Washington Police. What’s going on here?”

There were hurried, disjointed descriptions, and while the talking was going on, the detective fished a strange green handled weapon from the stranger’s pocket and placed it into his own. After the detective was again standing, Sergeant Dye could’ve sworn that in a low voice he said to the actor, “That was easy.” Getting no response, the detective asked, “You killed yourself. Why didn’t you kill him?”

John Wilkes Booth simply shook his head and went into the main entrance of the theater.

Lincoln had to be taken out with the derringer. In 1865 death by shockspan would leave too many unanswered questions. It had to be Lincoln dead, by the hand of John Wilkes Booth, and in a manner possible given the times. After walking quietly around the spectators in the darkened dress circle adjoining the presidential box, Roger stood before the empty chair where the president’s guard was supposed to be sitting. According to the data shot, the guard was long gone and would be no trouble. There was a huge laugh from the audience, and Roger opened the door and slipped in. There was one more door to go through to get to the president, and Roger could see a spot of dim light made by the gimlet hole he had made.

Picking up the pine plank he had hidden, he held one end against the inside of the door and shoved the other end into the hole he had made in the plaster. Once the outer door had been secured, he went to the door to box number seven and peered through the hole. The president was seated in his rocking chair, his wife sitting to his right. To her right, almost facing the door to the box, were an officer, Henry Rathbone, and his fiancée, Clara Harris.

Rathbone would have to be watched, Roger reminded himself. He was the one who Booth had had to stab to get free of the box after shooting the president.

President Lincoln was closest to the door, and Roger watched the back of the man’s head, wishing he could see the face. Time becomes a joke to those who spend too much time in the timewave, and history had become, to Roger, nothing but a vast video library playable in extreme virtual reality. Still, from somewhere deep inside himself, he had a great respect, a deep reverence, for the man he was supposed to kill. His tongue passed over dry lips as he doubted if he could pull the trigger.

At the sound of someone brushing against the outer door, Roger bolted upright and turned. It was Ryan, he thought. It had to be. The doorknob was turned but the pine jamb held the door shut fast. The doorknob stopped turning and there was a long silence from that direction. From the direction of the stage, however, came the assassin’s cue lines. The actress playing Mrs. Mountchessington said to her daughter, “Augusta, to your room!”

“Yes, ma,” replied Augusta. “The nasty beast!”

Soon there would be no one left on stage save Harry Hawk, playing the part of Mr. Trenchard, and Harry Hawk was no match for a man brandishing a knife. The way to freedom would be clear. Roger would shoot Lincoln and would probably have to cut Major Rathbone. Then it was a twelve foot jump to the stage and out the back door to where Johnny Peanut was holding his mare. It stunned Roger how simple the whole thing had been. One bold man with a knife and a single shot pistol had killed the president, made it to the stage, gave a quick speech (Sic semper tyrannis) according to some accounts, stymied an entire audience, and exited, stage right on a broken ankle.

“I am aware, Mr. Trenchard,” said the character of Mrs. Mountchessington, “that you are not used to the manners of a good soc—”

Roger peered again through the gimlet hole, watched the back of the President’s head hardly moving, then heard Henry Hawk say, “Don’t know the manners of a good society, eh?”

That was the cue line. With the derringer in his hand, he opened the door, stepped into the box, and came up behind the President as Henry Hawk delivered the big laugh line of the night, “Wal, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, you sockdologizing old man trap!”

As the audience roared, Roger lifted the derringer and watched in horror as the President stood and faced him, a Colt pistol in his hand. “The name’s Ryan,” said the president just as he fired from the waist blowing a sizeable hole through Roger’s heart.

Somehow he was glad he had failed. As Roger went down, the blackness coming over him, he vaguely heard his own derringer fire. In a swim of faded sounds a high pitched woman’s voice screamed, “Dear God! They’ve shot Mrs. Lincoln!”

3:04 PM, 26 June, 2117

When Roger opened his eyes, Abraham Lincoln was looking down at him. Lincoln smiled and removed both wart and beard, revealing the face of Peter Ryan. “I think he’s awake, Dalik.”

“What’s he doing here?” croaked Roger.

Dalik Ophon, Isa Childs, and Jason Wells came around the heated gel couch and looked down at Roger. “How are you feeling?” asked the time warden.

“Feeling?” Roger scowled as he sat up. “I feel like I failed and the universe is about to come to an end, that’s how I feel.” He nodded toward Ryan. “What’s he doing here?”

“He’s on our side, now,” said Jason Wells as he lowered his bulk into a puff chair.

“You mean he’s out to kill himself?”

“No,” answered Ryan. “Things have changed a bit.”

“Changed?” Roger looked at Isa Childs. “Changed how?”

His former therapist held out a hand toward a window wall. “Have a look.”

Roger gingerly touched where both knife and bullet had, in other realities, entered his chest and stopped his heart. Getting to his feet he walked to the window wall and looked down upon an enormous park that seemed to cover the land as far as the eye could see. In the distance, Roger could see several gleaming spires rising above the trees. There were two other structures, as well. The Capitol and the Washington Monument. Down below, sleek silent vehicles streaked along a local viaduct.

“When is this?”

“2117,” answered Ryan.

“June,” added the time warden.

Roger turned and held out his hands. “I don’t get it. The event ripple should’ve passed here hours ago, killing everyone.”

“It did,” answered Dalik. “Several of them, in fact. This is the Lincoln lives, Mary Todd Lincoln dies scenario.”

“When you went down,” said Ryan,” your derringer went off and killed the first lady. You wouldn’t believe how the press suddenly loved her once she had a slug in her head.”

“Okay,” said Roger as he faced Peter Ryan. “Let’s have whatever it is you clowns are busting to say. Spit it out. Where was Lincoln during the play?”

“He was on his way south by train to personally accept the surrender of General Joseph Johnston.”

“Our boy Ryan entered the stream back in ‘64,” said Wells, “and worked his way into being a double for Lincoln for certain kinds of functions.”

“So, what’s going on here?” demanded Roger. “Lincoln goes insane, right, and the world goes to hell?”

“No,” answered Dalik. “It seems that Lincoln became almost a god, he was held in such reverence. He held office for three more terms, and his son Robert became president after him.”

“Lincoln lived,” said Ryan with great satisfaction. “The South was rebuilt. Freedom, peace, education, and prosperity. Eventually there was no underclass. By popular acclaim the presidential title became hereditary, making the Lincolns our royal family. Eventually it became intermarried with the European, Eastern, and Asian royal families, and the world is what you see now: a stable population of about two billion, no war, no poverty, no unemployment, a world-wide realization of the American Dream.”

Roger frowned as he slowly shook his head. “I don’t get it,” said Roger. “I thought Lincoln went stark raving gibbers in ’69—”

“His wife was what drove him over the edge,” said Dalik. “Mary Todd Lincoln had been quite mad since the death of her son William in 1862. If she had remained alive, she probably would’ve driven the president mad, as well. Your killing the first lady has made the world what it is today. As I once told you, Roger. You’re not very good at this, but you are incredibly lucky.”

“What do you mean? Aren’t we going back? Set things right?”

“There’s nothing to set right. Reality is what it is, and it contains no provisions for time spanning. We only had time enough to get us inserted into the stream here before the timewave was eliminated altogether. We’re all in the stream now.”

With a great weariness, Roger again looked through the window wall at Washington. It would take time to get used to it all. The new time, the new reality. He was almost afraid to ask about Hollywood and Close Encounters. Before he could, however, Peter Ryan stood beside him and held out a pen and a pad of paper. “What’s that?”

“I just wanted to ask you for your autograph.”

“What?”

“You are Richard Dreyfuss, aren’t you? I’m certain of it. If I can get your autograph, I’ll be the only one in the world who has one.”

“Dreyfuss wasn’t born into this reality,” explained Isa Childs. “No Close Encounters; no Oscar; no What About Bob?”

“I’d like one anyway,” said Ryan. “For sentimental reasons.”

Roger glanced at the time warden, then let his gaze drift to Peter Ryan’s face. “If I am Richard Dreyfuss,” said Roger, “I don’t give autographs.”