by Larry Hunt
Chapter Twenty-One
THE MISSION
Captain Scarburg literally ran across the room, threw his arms around Bud and squeezed him so hard they heard Bud grunt, “Easy Grandpa! Easy! What’s come over you? I just went down the hall to the restroom while you went downstairs.”
“Just glad to see you Bud, just so glad to see you, please if you don’t mind, take that empty seat next to Olive Marie.”
“Well, thanks Grandpa, I don’t mind if I do since that’s where I was sitting a few minutes ago anyway.”
No, this isn’t the end of the story, but it isn’t the beginning of the end either. This meeting in the center of the room with the Captain and Bud is just the end of the beginning.
Forrest sat at the table watching the heartfelt exchange; he could not understand why Captain Scarburg was so excited at seeing Bud.
“Okay, now you are all here we can finally begin.”
“I thought we had already started, Grandpa,” Gabby exclaimed.
“All right Gabby - how about a meaningful synopsis of our meeting so far to refresh all our minds.”
“Okay Grandpa -we came into the room a little while ago. You were standing at your board. We sat down at this table. Then you started talking about the forty-ninth anniversary of the attempted assassination of President Kennedy. Wait why did I say ‘attempted’ I meant the assassination of the President.”
“You are doing good Gabby - where was everyone seated at the table?
“Why Grandpa! We are still seated right where we sat down a while ago. What are you getting at?”
“Go on Gabby. What else?”
“Well Grandpa, I know you talked about the Zapruder film that was taken the day Kennedy was killed. You explained how, you, Spook, and Tinker watched it in living color complete with sound. You all counted four shots while watching the actual shooting in Dallas, Texas instead of the three that had been officially determined.”
“Good Gabby, you are on a roll - go on.”
“Okay, then you mentioned Pegasus and you thought the SCAR facilities should explore the Kennedy shooting by going back to 1963. And you wanted us to go back to the Kennedy assassination on Pegasus. I certainly remember what I said then, ‘Grandpa! Are you crazy? We don’t even know if that contraption works!’
“Next you asked about the information written on the board. You wanted to see if we agreed with the things you had written. After some discussion, you asked us to put our initials beside the facts with which we agreed, and we agreed with you on all your facts.”
“You then took a picture of the board and a picture of all of us sitting around the table, and as you left the room to go downstairs to the lab you took another picture. As you left you also reminded us not to mess with your whiteboard. You said big brother was watching.”
“You’re doing great Gabby – good, concise synopsis of the meeting up to now. Why did I leave the room?”
“You said you had forgotten some information and had to go downstairs to the lab to get it.”
“And Gabby, how long was I gone?”
“Oh, I dunno, maybe five minutes or so.”
“Pretty decent grand-daughter, now let me start trying to explain what I believe you have been wondering, ‘What the heck was I up to!’
“Okay, let me start at Gabby’s last statement, she said, ‘I had to go downstairs to get some information.’ Well I got it! Did I ever get it! I’ll cover that in a minute.
“Right now I want to dwell on Gabby’s outburst, ‘Grandpa! Are you crazy? We don’t even know if that contraption works!’ Anyone remember what I was talking about?”
For once it wasn’t Gabby venturing the answer, it was Sam Lin. “Captain you had been talking about tomorrow, November the 22nd being the forty-ninth anniversary of the President Kennedy assassination. You explained in detail our involvement with the Zapruder film and the implication the four instead of three shots implied. We knew at the time when SCAR was started someday we would have to investigate the Kennedy assassination.”
Si Lei added his comments, “After the return from Thailand we knew to follow the leads in the Kennedy investigation would require the entire resources of the SCAR facilities. And dealing with covert government agencies and possibly organized crime would exhaust a vast amount of time, and it could be dangerous.”
Yes,” Lou added, “you said SCAR had developed Pegasus to travel back in time. Forrest asked if you wanted to send someone back to the Kennedy assassination. Pegasus was designed to travel from one Parallel Universe to another Parallel Universe, but Forrest thought this could be extremely dangerous to the person picked to be the first guinea pig. He questioned if we were even close to being ready to attempt human transport. Forrest also asked if it were your intention to send someone back to do some research on the John Kennedy assassination.”
“And I’m going to say it again until you understand Grandpa ‘Are you crazy?’ Said Gabby. “Forrest is right – as I have already said - we don’t know if this gadget will ever succeed. An actual human trying to travel in that machine - it’ll be suicide.”
Forrest added, “Gabby is right, we need to start with insects, move up to a rat, then, maybe, a rabbit. Later we can work with a larger mammal such as a dog or monkey. Then and only then can we even consider a human - we are years away from human testing! Remember we have never gotten one of our ‘time-traveling’ machines to return.”