Letter to the President
Chapter 1

Copyright© 2020 by Scorpio writer

“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.”

“God, how do we keep it all straight, how did my predecessors cope?” the President asked, shaking his head in confusion.

“Actually, we now come to one of the rules. Not every President or indeed Security Advisor is told of the existence of this group. Some are not informed of the existence of the travellers for one reason or another. I suspect it’s because they can’t be trusted to either not abuse it or keep the secret.”

“I take it that if I know about the time travellers, I am trusted, and I did not do anything wrong during my time in office or after.

Interesting way of working, but if you have the power they have, I suppose you can do that. If I revealed the secret, they would simply send a letter to you to not tell me and then the timeline where I told all, would not happen. Complicated but easy in the same move. So, can I expect to have lots of letters from my future self?” asked the President.

“Not necessarily,” said Simon. “you could get just one or two throughout your entire presidency. It’s all dependent on what’s happening in the world.”

There was a short pause whilst Simon gave the President time to consider things and him to group his thoughts. He was expecting some serious questions to come next, ones he and his predecessors had all asked.

“What I cannot understand is if they have had this for over a hundred years, how come the world isn’t a better place.” asked a puzzled President.

This was one of the expected questions, one he too had asked of both his predecessor and the travellers. He gave the same response he had been given.

“How do we know it’s not a better place, what do you think could be better? More importantly, what do you think you could know in advance and hence change, that could ‘make the world a better place’. Let us think about it, name a situation that we could have changed” suggested Simon.

The President considered the question for a few moments. “Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot to name a few. If we had gotten rid of them the world would have been a better place.”

“Perhaps, but it’s interesting that you should pick them. I too have used the same bad guys as a question to our travellers. It seems that while they are very evil, and they did lots of evil things, in the long run, the world needed them,” said Simon.

“Needed them, how in god’s name do you justify that?” asked the President. “They killed millions, no I am not convinced.”

“How about this,” said Simon, “without Hitler, Stalin and communism would have overrun all of Europe. Just before the second world war, communism was rife in almost every country, including the US. If communism had gotten a hold in Europe it would lead to a completely different world. Also, do not lose sight of the fact that Stalin killed 20 million of his own people before the war started. If he had all of Europe, he would have had the opportunity to kill off many more, remember what he did in Poland in the Katyn forest. The execution of the Polish officer corps and hundreds of intellectual and political leaders.

Likewise, without Stalin being in power in the Soviet Union, Hitler would have won the fight against Eastern Europe, Stalin was the unifying force. It seems that whilst the travellers can do a lot, they can’t do everything.”

“Ok, what about Pearl Harbor, why didn’t they stop that? All they needed to do was tell Roosevelt and he would have sailed the fleet.” asked the President.

“It seems that they did tell him, have you ever wondered why the Carriers were out at sea? The Pacific war was won by Carriers, not battleships. He seemingly sacrificed the big ships to allow a clear picture to emerge of the threat that Japan presented.

At the time both the political parties and the American people were so set on being isolationist, that we became a nation intent on closing its eyes to the danger. The attack gave a nation a chance to wake up and become angry.

I know the President tried to get more airplanes to the islands to thin down the Japanese forces as they attacked. But was advised that our planes of the time would have been so outclassed, that it would have been a waste of our trained pilots. Instead, he let things run their course and the troops on the ground learn from their mistakes.

The other thing to not lose sight of is the level of influence our travellers have, it has grown over time but in those early days there was very little they could do. They had not built up the formidable network they have today.” Explained Simon.

“So, they have a network, just how big is it,” asked the President.

“I am reliably informed that it is the absolute best intelligence service in the world, as you would expect. They know in advance who they can trust and who is corruptible, they also know where to allocate assets. I wish I had more access; I could do so much more. They do let me know about some things, but for the most part it’s us on our own. They have a noticeably light touch on our ability to make decisions. I for one am very much taken by that approach.” said Simon.

“So, back to the letters, will I always get letters from myself and do you get to see them before me?” asked the president.

“Sir, I never look at your letters unless you show them to me. I do, however, get letters of my own that either refer to your letters or tell me what the desired action is. I also get the occasional telephone call or meeting. The whole thing about these letters is to help stop significant issues, it’s not about making a perfect future. We as an administration cannot function by constantly second-guessing ourselves. To be blunt I would be incredibly happy indeed if I never got a letter,” said a rueful Simon.

“Why is that, having a chance to correct mistakes must be a significant advantage,” asked the President.

“Interesting, I do know that some of your predecessors have had very few letters and others lots. My thinking is that if I don’t get any, I must have done a good job, conversely, lots mean I am missing things or that areas outside of my zone of interest are getting out of control.”

“Ah, now that is an interesting take on things. I was starting to think that getting lots of information would be great, but thinking as you have just outlined, the fewer the better. I wonder when my next letter will come.” the President wondered.

With that Simon reached into his briefcase and took out a large envelope.

“Sir, here is your next envelope, I know what it’s about in general terms as I have had my own letter, but not the fine detail. However, I know it’s one that you will wish you had not gotten. My instructions are to give you this and leave you to read this alone. So, here it is, and I wish you well sir.” With that Simon stood and left the room.

The President stood up and returned to his desk, taking a letter opener, he opened the letter and began to read. He read through the letter twice before looking at the additional documents. After a while he picked up the letter and put it in his pocket, leaving out all the other documents that came with it on the desk. Reaching over the desk he pressed the intercom, “Sam, can you pop in please.”

Sam stepped into the office, the smile on his face was one that said he would now get to know what the big secret was.

“Sam,” said the President. “Take a seat, I need to check a few things with you.” Once Sam sat down the President lifted one of the sheets of paper that had come in the envelope from the future.

“Sam, in 2006 did you start a small investment group called Outlier Investments?” The President asked.

“Ah, yes why has that come up now? I have no contact with them anymore, in fact, I am not sure it’s still running,” said Sam, looking a little flustered.

“Sam, I have here enough information to send you to jail for 20 years, I have copies of the emails you sent that show you knew it was illegal, that you actively conspired with others to commit fraud.”

“Sir, I don’t know where you have gotten that information from but it’s not true,” said Sam.

“Sam, all of this,” said the President waving at the papers on his desk. “All of it is in the hands of a bunch of people who we know are going to wait a few days till you’re settled, then they are going to try and blackmail you. They want to either control the information that gets to me or neuter my presidency to the extent that I become a lame duck.

This information is accurate, it’s been checked. It lists all the money transfers, your offshore accounts and all the shady tricks you have done to hide the funds. If it gets out, as I said, you will end up in prison and your family will be destitute.”

Leaning back and looking at one of the sheets of paper the President paused before continuing.

“However, Sam, we strongly believe that if you are no longer in the picture, they will not use it, as it will expose others they are pressuring with elements of this same fraud. What I propose is that when you go home tonight, you will be reported as having a massive heart attack. One that has been brought on by the strain of my election campaign. We can arrange to fake the medical side, after a few days we will announce that you are unable to return and are retiring from politics.” The President dropped the sheet of paper he was holding and looked hard at Sam.

“Much as it pains me to allow you to escape with your ill-gotten gains, it’s for the best. If you’re out of the picture your family and this administration will continue to function.” The President looked at Sam who was both shocked and relieved. It was obvious from his face that he would take the offer.

“What I need you to do is to carry on as normal for the rest of the day and go home early saying you’re feeling a little ‘under the weather’. Simon will call you later about the ambulance and he will set up the hospital. You need to play the sick man till this dies out and then I would advise moving overseas to live out the rest of your life. I suspect that if you ever get involved in politics, these people will resurface, and you could find it all coming unstuck. Do remember that the next time you feel like involving yourself in political or financial affairs, you would not have Simon or me helping you.”

“Mr. President, I am sorry I let you down, I will play my part and thank you for letting me off so lightly.” Sam said, with that he left the office and the President reflected on his first-time travel experience.

Taking the letter from his pocket he reread the last paragraph, he now knew what it was like to have knowledge of people’s failings and he dreaded the next letter.

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