Chapter 1

“Good morning Mr. President, I am here to give you your special security briefing.” said Simon Low.

Simon was the current Presidential Security Advisor, he had stayed on after the last administration departed and was one of the few who made the transition. As is often the case, new administrations wanted their own trusted teams in place. However, in this case, the President had been reliably informed that the current advisor was independent and good at his job. He had therefore elected to keep him.

Simon moved over to stand before the President’s desk, looking at the Chief of Staff as he spoke.

“Sir, I regret that this briefing is Presidential Eyes Only, so your Chief of Staff will have to leave,” he said.

The President looked up from the papers his Chief had laid before him. “First of all, are you sure this will take a full two hours and secondly; Sam here will be privy to everything I do, I am sure we can include him,” said the President.

“Sorry sir, it’s you and I only. However, I will assure you that once we have concluded the briefing you will understand,” said Simon who was looking a little perturbed to be countermanding his President on his first day in office.

“Don’t worry sir, I have lots to do so I will catch up with you later.” Sam said. He had been with the President for many years and knew just how the President worked. He stood and smiled at Simon as he went to leave.

The look on Sam’s face and the implication in his few words said lots to Simon, who correctly read that the Chief of Staff was thinking that the President would tell him all about it later, regardless of how secret the Security Advisor thought it was.

As soon as Sam left the President indicated that Simon should sit.

“Sir, one of the biggest secrets of the last 100 years is that we in the US have had access to information about future events from a group of time travelers,” said Simon as he sat down.

“Ok, if this is some sort of new presidential hazing thing, I think it’s in poor taste,” said the President looking very stern.

“I am not as scientifically dumb as you may think. I know that theoretically it’s possible to travel in time, but we don’t yet have the technology. However, that being so, if you wish to proceed with this hazing, do remember that you serve at my pleasure,” the President continued.

“Very true sir. However, this is not some form of hazing and I have a letter here for you that you are supposed to read first.” With that Simon handed the President a small white envelope.

The President looked at the envelope and at his name scrawled on the front, the writing looked familiar. Opening it up and beginning to read, Simon could see him stopping and starting again; eventually, the President got to the end. Folding the letter up he looked across at Simon.

“Do you know what’s in this letter?” asked the President.

“No sir, one of the rules of this system is that only the named person on the letter may open it.” Simon replied.

“Well, Simon, it says it’s from me, it also says that this is real, and it goes on to reveal a secret that only I know, something I have never told anyone. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and take this briefing at face value. Please go on.” The President said seriously.

Referring to his notes Simon began. “Sir, in 1873 a group of travelers on a stagecoach traveling from Chicago had an incident that resulted in them becoming time travelers. Well, to be honest, if you have seen the film ‘Groundhog Day’ it was more akin to that than time travel. They jump back and forth through time on a regular schedule and by that, I mean they spend the same amount of time in both the past and future.

They always travel back to the same point in time, that of 1873 and the same location i.e. Chicago. The day they started the journey from Chicago. The forward or future side of the time travel jump is not fixed, it progresses by two days every trip forwards.

They always spent the same four days in Chicago back in 1873, but after four days they jump forward. The future jump is always to the same time they left to return to the past, once back in the future time moves on and for the next two days, they live in the same time frame as the rest of the world. I like to think of it as a Rubber Band, they live in real time for two days and then the Rubber Band snaps them back to the past.

However, as I said after two days, they were pulled back to 1873. The jump back takes them to the very same point, but they now know what will happen in the future.

After a few moments thought the President looked at Simon and spoke. “So, how is that time travel, how does that help us?”

“Sir, to be honest at first the travelers too did not know what was going on and they admit it took some time before they worked out a plan. This plan to theirs involved moving money about and it soon led to them becoming very wealthy. They did not, however, approach the government till 1900 and by that time the wealth they had gained, had resulted in considerable power.”

Simon went on to explain how the time travelers had convinced Teddy Roosevelt to run for VP. Teddy had been a thorn in the side of party politics and did not consider the post of VP as a real job. The travellers had convinced him that he needed to take the post without telling him about McKinley’s assassination. The travellers knew they had to get him in place and not tell him why or else he would have wanted to stop the assassination.

Once Teddy became President, he was furious with the travellers, he initially wanted nothing to do with them, but later relented.

“As you can see, they are very restrictive on what they will do for us. They will sometimes let horrible things happen because they lead to better things in the long run.” said Simon.

“Well, I don’t know how my predecessors worked this but that stops now; they will do as we say, or they will spend their time in Leavenworth. Decisions on the future should reside with the elected representatives of the people, not some self-serving bunch of power brokers.” The President said and sat back with an expression that indicated he would brook no challenge on this.

“Ah sir,” said Simon. “Now, we have the first problem, how do we lock them up when they will just jump out after two days. Once they are back in the past, they can do lots to stop that from happening.”

“How can they stop it? After four days they will simply jump back into their jail cells.” asked the President.

“They don’t jump back to where they left. They jump back to an unknown place in Chicago. Before you start thinking about making the place they jump to a prison, it’s interesting to note that they have always kept that location secret. I say interesting, because I cannot believe that one of my predecessors had not tried to find it.” Simon explains.

“Why do you say interesting,” asked the President. “I think I have missed something there.”

“Quite sir,” said Simon with a half-smile on his lips. “If you have access to the past, one of the old talking points against time travel was that you must be incredibly careful you don’t kill off your grandparents. Taking my point about jumping back into the past into consideration, I wonder if any of the past holders of this post have tried to find or imprison them and ‘disappeared’ or at least had their role in life altered.”

“My god, I suppose they can even get rid of me,” said the President.

“Yes, they could. In fact, they will admit that they have changed the outcome of elections and even admit that they have been involved with the death of a sitting President. They do, however, admit that it’s been for the good of the nation or the world, but it’s a sobering thought to the amount of power they have.” Simon agreed.

“We will have a meeting with them soon, I had a meeting with them when my predecessor left, and they spent several hours running through issues. I think we need to take care when handling them, they are extremely powerful both in the way they can change the past and in simple non-time travel power politics.” Simon says.

“So, they can arrange for my younger self to be killed and I never get to be President,” said a shocked President. “I think we will have to come back to that later. I also want to know about the second point you made in more detail”

“I don’t think they need to be so dramatic as killing you as a child, they need only stop your parents from meeting by some means less dramatic, and suddenly you’re not here. They have admitted that they have changed the outcome of political and industrial posts as well as admitting that they have been involved with the death of a sitting President.”

“What, who the hell did they kill?” asked the President.

“They admit to the death of Kennedy,” said Simon. “However, they also admit that Kennedy knew about it and sanctioned it. He was one of the Presidents in the know, he had access to future knowledge.”

“I find that hard to believe, why would any sane man allow himself to be killed? It is preposterous. Of all the things you have said so far this is the one thing that casts doubt over this time travel thing.” said the President.

“As it happens, it is one of the few things that the Security Advisors since Kennedy, have always known about, it’s been passed from one to the next. However, before we move on, I need to explain this some more.” Simon looked at the president carefully, he knew what he was about to say was groundbreaking, key in the President’s understanding of this ‘gift’.

“Sir, after the Cuban crisis the Russians not only did not trust the US, and Kennedy in particular. They were determined to not be ‘out bluffed’ next time. They had been convinced after the fact that the US would not have launched nuclear weapons, that Kennedy was bluffing.

If Kennedy lived, eventually there would be an all-out thermonuclear war that would lead to over three and a half billion deaths with over 200 million of them being American.

The travellers and Kennedy tried all sorts of different tactics to alter the path of this, but it seemed that the one and only common cause was Kennedy. He was the thorn in the Russian side. Ultimately, it was his death that cooled the temper of the Soviet leadership. Therefore, Kennedy, like the true leader and warrior he was, he gave his life for peace.” Simon explained.

“Strangely, now that you have explained it like that, I can believe it. My reading of the man was that he always wanted to do the right thing. I take it that every President since has had this related to them, sort of follow in my footsteps sort of example?” asked the President.

“That’s how we have all read it, “said Simon

“But before we go on I need you to explain about them ‘trying all sorts of different tactics’.” said the President.

“Yes, that does need clearing up,” said Simon. “Seemingly, if they make a change, only they, that is the travellers, remember the change. If for example, you send a letter back via them to a former self to make a change. Any changes you make are complete rewrites of the future. Your future self only knows that a letter arrived, and you made a change; what the outcome of not making that change had been, is wiped from the timeline and our memories.”