by Eric Black
Vincent didn’t see Jasper’s Other Self in the shadows. That’s because he was no longer there. Jasper’s Other Self didn’t disappear the way one did when they were traveling through time. Jasper’s Other Self dissolved from existence because the timeline had once again been altered. Jasper was never there in the capacity of an observer in the new line of history. But the Jasper who had been shot in the chest was still there.
Vincent walked over to Jasper and knelt down beside him. Jasper’s eyes were filled with hatred.
“Who are you?” Vincent screamed into Jasper’s face.
Jasper couldn’t answer. He tried to smile but as he did he coughed and more blood sprayed out.
Vincent knew it was hopeless. The man would die and he would never know who he was. But no matter. He had saved Hitler. Plus Jack was dead. The timeline was now changed and he could have his life back.
He stood up (mindful of those across No Man’s Land shooting in his direction), gave one final look to a dying Jasper and then disappeared.
After Vincent left, Jasper looked up at the sky that was tinted red with mortar explosion. He was close to death but he would not die here in this mud-entrenched hole. He focused on a time far in the future and he disappeared as well.
The next thing Jasper recalled was waking up in a white room. He looked around and saw strange machines. He waited for his eyes to adjust and when they did, he attempted to sit up. The pain was too much. Instead, he resigned to lift his head.
He was in a hospital. He couldn’t tell the date at first but a screen on the wall revealed the date to him: June 8, 2124.
“You shouldn’t be moving around,” he heard a voice say. Jasper looked and saw a nurse running towards him.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“You’re in a hospital.”
“How long have I been here?”
“You’ve been here for about an hour. You lost a lot of blood. The surgery was successful. We should have you out of here in about thirty minutes,” the nurse replied.
Jasper smiled. An hour and a half for a gunshot wound – the future was a great place for life-threatening injuries.
He looked over at the nurse who studied him with a soothing face. He could tell she cared about her work and her patients.
She started going over what had happened to him and how they had never seen a wound like that and weren’t entirely sure how the injury occurred. Jasper could have told her it was gunshot wound but it wouldn’t have done any good. He knew there weren’t any guns in 2124. Instead, he kept his mouth shut and listened to her talk. Her voice was very comforting.
As she continued to speak however, Jasper tuned her out. Inside, an icy feeling came over him. A smile spread across Jasper’s face. He watched the nurse as she spoke but he didn’t hear a word she said.
All he could think about was how much he wanted to kill her.
CHAPTER FIFTY ONE
Ypres, Belgium – Present Day
In the end, much did change back but history was still changed.
Woodrow Wilson was never the President of the United States. Instead, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts was the President of the United States during the First World War. The Treaty of Versailles was not signed with Lodge citing that the treaty favored the British. Theodore Roosevelt was his Vice-President.
As a post-war President, Lodge was able to shape the United States into a much different nation. In 1890, as a Senator, he had co-authored the Federal Elections Bill that guaranteed federal protection for voting rights by African Americans. The bill was originally blocked by a Democrat filibuster in the Senate. As President, he reopened the argument and in 1924, he was able to work with Congress to not only pass these rights but expand these rights. In short, he was able to accomplish in the 1920’s all of the items of the previous timeline’s Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In another timeline, the United States would eventually fall behind Germany, Yugoslavia, and the Ottoman Empire in world politics. Lodge made sure that didn’t happen. He strengthened the U.S. economy and as a result of his historic measures, the United States was able to by-and-large avoid the Great Depression. There was a recession but nothing of the sort that had happened in the past timeline. The United States became the global leader in economics, humanitarian aid and warfare.
The United States, however, was not able to stop World War II. When Adolf Hitler was not killed by Vincent during World War I, he rose to power in Germany. The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini also rose to power. Communism and Fascism were on the increase.
The Japanese would not expand the Japanese Empire into most of Russia and into India as they had before. They would join World War II under the same pretenses as they had previously.
Despite Vincent’s extreme efforts, the Holocaust was not avoided. The death of millions of lives that could have been avoided weighed on his soul for the remainder of his life. He was constantly conflicted as to what he could have done differently (other than not choose Libby).
New countries that had been created in the past timeline were not created. Gran Columbia and Southwest Africa, historic nations that had continued under the previous timeline dissolved as nations. The Ottoman Empire was one of these disbanded nations.
Teddy Roosevelt did not become the President in 1901. He served as Lodge’s Vice-President and took over the presidency in 1924 (Lodge died in 1924 soon after signing the Civil Rights Act into law.) In another timeline, Roosevelt would have died in 1919. In this timeline, he was very healthy and served two terms as President. He died in 1939, peacefully at the distinguished age of eighty one.
After Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover was elected President. He was in office one term. In 1936, former Assistant Secretary of War Henry Skillman Breckinridge ran against Hoover and defeated him. He served two terms as President.
Next was Thomas Dewey, the Republican Governor of New York in 1944. In 1948, Thurgood Marshall became the youngest and first African-American President of the United States. He served for three terms.
In 1960, John F. Kennedy became the President and all of the subsequent Presidents followed in the same fashion as the previous timeline. The Cold War developed as it had in the other timeline and Kennedy faced the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The world never knew Woodrow Wilson. He died young and was not replaced by a man from a future time who wanted to be part of history.
This was the world that Vincent found himself in when he came back. He woke up in the coma ward of a hospital in Ypres, Belgium and was faced with an existence much different than he had left.
He had been through a lot. He had killed men and seen those he loved die. He wasn’t sure upon waking from his coma if everything he had experienced was real or not but the memories of those timelines told him otherwise.
He looked around and double checked to make sure no one was watching. Then, he unhooked the machinery that monitored his life signs, stole some clothing from the doctor’s locker room and walked out the hospital.
The blue sky was welcome. The day was perfect. And he couldn’t explain it but he knew what day it was. He also knew who would be in Ypres giving a speech in remembrance of those who died during World War I.
As he walked towards the monument, he thought on those who had died. Especially on the man who killed Wilson. Vincent never learned his name or who he was but he was glad the man was dead.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the crowd. He turned his eyes to where people were gathering for the American President and increased his rate of walking.
Life was perfect (or so he hoped).
CHAPTER FIFTY TWO
Ypres, Belgium – Present Day
Libby traveled to Belgium to attend the anniversary and commemorate the Allies victory in World War I. The nation had always been a strange attraction for her.
She had just walked onto the stage towards the podium when her attention was immediately drawn to a man standing to her left, near the monument.
For a moment, everything was quiet and it seemed to her as if the man was the only person in an infinite open area. She had a vision at that moment of being in a hospital (she wasn’t sure how she knew but she knew the hospital was in Belgium) and in that vision, she saw herself walking towards a man in a coma. When she reached the man, she asked the doctor his name and the doctor replied that the man’s name was Vincent Shakespeare.
It was at that moment that the President of the United States recaptured the memories of a life that she had never lived with a man she had never met. Memories of looking at Edith Wilson through the eyes of Woodrow Wilson. Of World War I and meeting with Sir Haig. Of all the things she had changed in the world as President following the Great War.
Of being murdered.
She remembered being taken by force from the White House by a man who called himself Jack. She remembered that one moment she was inside the White House and the next moment she was somewhere else.
She saw the blood lust in his eyes as he held her down. Then, she felt the cold steel blade enter her stomach. She screamed and couldn’t help but look down at the blood that poured from her onto the ground. He filleted her skin and the pain just kept coming. Her last sight was of her intestines.
Libby shivered at those memories. But they were only memories. She was alive. She was alive and looking down at the man she loved.
The crowd and the world stage waited eagerly at her words to commemorate the Battle of Passchendaele. But whatever great speech she was going to give, the world never heard it.
Instead she walked away from the podium and turned towards the back of the stage where she had entered. The Secret Service agents began to react, not knowing what was wrong. The people in the crowed were stunned at the political spectacle gone awry and were confused as to what they were seeing from the American President.
She disappeared only momentarily and soon reappeared on the stairway, leading down from the stage. The agent in charge of the detail was feverously attempting to engage Libby in conversation as to what was occurring but she ignored him. Her eyes stayed focused on the area where she had seen Vincent.
The agents did their best to remove the distance from the President and the crowd as she walked through. Finally, she made it to where Vincent was standing. She stopped in front of him and looked into his eyes.
Vincent was not sure what to expect. His heart begged that she would remember him. But he had changed history again (and hopefully for the final time) and was not sure how it would play out between the two of them.
What Vincent neglected to remember was that when the timeline changed, it did not change back to the original timeline. Lost in the moment with Libby, he forgot that history had again been altered. In this new timeline, she had never married Charles and had never had children. Charles had tried to catch her eye in college but her eye was not caught. She couldn’t explain it as a young woman but she knew her heart already belonged to someone, although she didn’t know to whom it belonged.
She entered the world of business and politics and immersed in the job at hand, neglecting her personal life. It was only when she saw Vincent in the crowd did she know he was the man for whom her heart was waiting.
She looked at him a moment longer. Then, she took a step forward. Vincent engulfed her in his arms. Tears filled his eyes.
Much to the delight of the press that was covering the event she looked up and kissed Vincent. Camera flashes exploded. Libby ignored them. “Vincent,” she said to him.
Vincent’s tear-stained face smiled. His name had never sounded so sweet.
Libby smiled back. “Let’s go home.”
CHAPTER FIFTY THREE
London, England – August 1888
Jasper looked around Whitechapel Road. It was very dark. Along the entire street, there was only a smattering of windows that showed light. He knew the time – it was 2:00am.
He traversed the houses and saw no one. A path ran next to the house on the end, guarded by a crooked gate. He swung the gate open, mindful of the rusty creak of its hinges and moved slowly down the path towards the stables that lay beyond in the darkness. It was there that he met the woman.
She saw him and was startled at first but then relaxed and smiled. “’Ello, ‘andsome man.”
“Good evening, Polly,” Jasper answered.
Polly, the first Ripper victim looked at Jasper. He could tell she was confused that he knew her name. He didn’t give her time to ask questions. He smiled and with his right hand, brought up the knife.
The year was 1888 in the East End of London. And everything was as it should be.
Part Three
CALLING BABEL
CHAPTER ONE
The Keeper looked down at the woman on the table. She wore only a thin sheet as she lay on top of the ancient stone slab – the Stone of Návratu. The stone had been with his people since the world began. The ancient words carved into the stone – words which no one could read – were stained black with the blood of countless years.
The woman was beautiful. He could see her naked body beneath the thin sheet and she was very pleasing. Terror filled her eyes and the Keeper inhaled her fear, which excited and overwhelmed him. But the he had no plans to violate the woman and forbade any of his men to touch her. She was Triana, and although she was of little significance now, soon she would play a vigorous role in changing the world.
The Keeper raised the Sword of Návratu that was cradled within a hidden chamber carved into the Stone. Killing her outright would not change anything; instead, he would offer her a choice. He had the ability to reincarnate her with ajándék – the gift of touching emotions. To do so, she must willingly be slain with the Sword. She would return as herself, only much more. In return for this, she would serve him.
All she had to do was agree.
He stood over her with the sword and looked into her trembling eyes. “You know me?”
She didn’t answer at first. He became angry and let it show. He lowered the sword slightly until it rested upon the base of her throat. “I asked you a question. I will not repeat it.”
Triana nodded her head slightly. “I know you.” she whispered.
The Keeper smiled. His teeth were white and straight. The corners of his mouth curled into a smile that was rather congenial until one looked into his pale blue eyes. There lay only death and raging ambition. “That is good. Now, I will ask you three more questions. I will only ask each question once.”
He looked deep into her grey eyes. He could see she understood. She nodded slightly.
“Now that we understand each other, my first question is this: if I could give you ajándék, would you accept it?”
The question confused her and she didn’t answer at first. She wondered how anyone could make that happen. She thought that he was only seeking to humiliate her and then he would kill her anyways. She started not to answer but then felt the tip of the sword bite into her neck. The smile on the face of the Keeper turn into a deep scowl. The fear overrode her weak confidence and she nodded her head.
The smile of the Keeper came back slightly. “That is what I thought. Now for my second question; if I give this gift to you, you would receive that gift under my service. You will serve me. Are you sure you still want the gift?”
Triana wanted to say no. She wanted to be brave – but the fear was too deep. The sword on her neck was too real. She was very aware of her nakedness beneath the thin sheet and looked around at the room to men who gazed upon her with no emotion. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she refused. She imagined suffering, humiliation, and pain. She couldn’t take that. She was too weak. She had to give in to his demands, even if they were in the form of questions. She nodded again.
She looked at the Keeper. The man – if he could be called that – had a feared reverence among the people of the world. He was the leader of the Klopph.
As the leader of the Klopph, he looked down at Triana and watched the fright consume her thoughts.
He gazed at her body beneath the sheet again and thought that perhaps once she fulfilled what he was asking, he would have a further use for her after all.
He pushed those thoughts aside and moved his gaze to her eyes. He asked his final question. “Are you willing to do what is necessary to achieve the gift of ajándék?”
Without hesitation – she had already given up – she nodded a final time.
The Keeper pushed the sword down.
CHAPTER TWO
Babel watched as the tower fell. Dirt and concrete dust filled the air as what had been a building grew accustomed to its new role as a pile of rubble. Babel looked over at the head of the demolition team and nodded. He doubted the man saw him as the demolition team was busy inspecting their work but the nod gave Babel a sense of completion.
Babel was regular guy. He owned his own business. He loved football. He was cursed with being a lifelong fan of the Detroit Lions. Above all other food he enjoyed a good cheeseburger. One characteristic, however, set him apart from everyone else that he knew – he could start fires with his mind.
He had started the construction company right out of college. It began with small jobs, building decks, building fences, small renovations. Business steadily grew until he was adding rooms onto homes. Finally, he was building homes of his own.
At first it was one home at a time, which took as long as six months. He had a small crew that worked with him and soon realized that he needed to hire more men if he was going to grow his business.
He recognized that each house built was a reflection of his company. Because of that, he was very cautious as to who he would trust to run a second crew. He called on a few of his friends from college and soon he had four crews working for him.
After two years, business was moving faster than he could keep up with. He needed someone who could manage the day-to-day operations of each of the sites, allowing him time to meet new customers, follow up on previous jobs, and handle the business-side of the company. Again, he was faced with bringing in someone who shared his same values and integrity in doing the job at the expected high-level. Faced with that decision, he brought in his father as his operations manager.