A Perfect World



Epilogue



San Jose, California

March 3, 2008



School had let out for the day nearly an hour before and all of the children 
had long since departed the campus, picked up by their parents, or by the 
school bus, or by one of the day care vans. The administration office was 
still open, however, and about half of the teachers assigned to Ronald 
Reagan Elementary were inside, filing paperwork or preparing their next 
day's lesson plans. Annie Frazier-who taught third grade-was one such 
teacher. She sat at the end of the table in the conference room, her papers 
stacked neatly before her.



"I'm blowing this scene," declared Jenny O'Riley, who sat next to her. "I 
have a date tonight. I've been teaching this crap to those little shits long 
enough now that I should be able to wing it, shouldn't I?"



"You could probably do it in your sleep," Annie agreed, the barest hint of a 
smile on her face. "Who you going out with this time?"



She looked around furtively and lowered her voice. "Doug's taking me to the 
Chez Bolo," she whispered. "Keep that to yourself, huh?"



Doug Masterson was the school principal-a man, it was said, who was going 
places in the San Jose Unified School District. Annie shook her head 
resignedly as she heard this. "Haven't you learned your lesson about married 
men?" she asked her friend.



"It's not like that at all," Jenny assured her. "He and his wife don't get 
along with each other. They sleep in separate rooms. They haven't... you 
know... had sex for almost two years now."



"Then why doesn't he leave her?"



"He wants to wait until the kids are older," she said. "You know, so it 
won't be so hard on them."



Annie looked at her pointedly. "Do you really believe all that crap he's 
handing you?" she asked. "Or do you just pretend to believe it to assuage 
your own guilt?"



Jenny looked shocked for a moment and then softened. She grinned. "I just 
try not to dwell too much on it," she admitted. "If I think too much about 
my own motivations, my whole house of cards might come crashing down on me."



"And we can't have that nasty morality getting in our way now, can we?" 
Annie asked her.



"Exactly," Jenny said. "The plain and simple fact of the matter is that 
married men are better in bed. Single guys have no idea what the hell 
they're doing. They just want to get you drunk so they can shove it in and 
blast off in two minutes. I never had an orgasm with a lover until I got it 
on with one of my married professors at San Jose State. After that, I was 
hooked. Who am I to go questioning their rationale? They're the ones 
cheating, not me."



"An interesting way of looking at it," Annie told her.



"I look at it whatever way assures me of good sex," she said. "And what 
about you?"



"What about me?" Annie asked.



"When are you going to go out and get your chassis lubed? You must be rusty 
as hell after all this time."



"Put in your usual delicate way," Annie said sourly. "Like I told you before 
when you tried to fix me up with your brother-your married brother-I'm not 
quite ready to start that whole dating thing again. All I'll do is end up 
comparing whoever it is to Ken."



"Annie," she said, "It's been almost five years now. Five years. It's time 
to move on with your life, isn't it?"



Her expression turned whimsical. "I don't think it is," she said softly. "It 
should be... but something is telling me to wait a little longer."



"That sounds like a bunch of spiritual mumbo-jumbo," Jenny told her.



"It does, doesn't it?" Annie said. "Sometimes I think that myself. 
Especially when I get really... you know..."



"Horny?" Jenny suggested.



Annie giggled. "Right... horny," she said. "And I'm telling you, that's been 
happening a lot lately."



"If you don't mind my asking," Jenny said, "Have you been laid at all since 
Ken... since he..."



"Died," she said. "Since Ken died. It's okay to say it."



"Sorry," Jenny said, knowing that her friend had spent a considerable amount 
of money to actually freeze the body of her dead husband and that she was 
continuing to pay a large monthly rent so he would remain frozen in the 
whacked out hope that someday he would be revived. "Died. But have you? Been 
laid, that is?"



"I haven't been with a man since Ken," she said, actually telling a little 
white lie of omission. True, she had not been with a man in any way, but she 
had developed a relationship with Janet, Ken's partner, the lesbian woman he 
had been flying with on the day he was shot. It had started as a comfort 
friendship in the months after Ken's shooting. Janet had been Ken's best 
friend, as strange of a concept as that was, and she had taken to checking 
up on his widow from time to time. And then one night, about a year after 
the funeral, it had turned into something else. They had had a few glasses 
of wine together during a lunch date and had hugged and, before either 
really knew what was happening, they had ended up in bed together. Since 
then, they had made love six or seven times a year, usually when Annie's 
sexual frustration reached the point of near-madness. It was a booty call 
relationship at its very finest, but it kept her from going insane while she 
was... while she was waiting for something. She no longer believed that Ken 
was going to be awakened-at least not in her lifetime. But something, some 
force, some compulsion, was telling her to wait nonetheless, that her 
patience would be rewarded.



"We need to get you laid, girlfriend," Jenny told her, appalled at the 
thought of a relatively young, rich widow going for five years without sex. 
"Why don't you let me fix you up with one of my friends? A 
no-strings-attached kind of thing. I know guys who will hose you down until 
you pass out. We can double date some night."



"Not just yet," Annie told her politely. "But thanks for the offer."



Jenny picked up her papers and her purse and stood up. "Well, think it 
over," she said. "The offer is always good."



She left a moment later, pausing for a few seconds in the main office to 
make googly-eyes at Doug. Annie went back to her next day's lesson plan and 
finished up ten minutes later. She packed up her own papers, grabbed her own 
purse, and made her way out into the staff parking lot. She sighed as she 
fired up the engine on her Volvo and started heading for the day care center 
where Little Ken spent his days while she was working.



Ken Jr. looked so much like his father it was painful at times. On this day, 
as she snapped him into his car seat in the parking lot, the resemblance 
seemed particularly strong. He was dressed in a pair of blue overalls with a 
Sponge Bob sweater underneath. His brown eyes were happy and excited and his 
brown hair, recently cut short as was the current fashion, looked exactly 
like her dead husband's. She felt a small shiver running up her spine as she 
saw him smile at her. The smile was the same one Ken had given when he was 
excited about something.



"What's got you all happy, little boy?" she heard herself ask him.



"Daddy's park!" he said enthusiastically. "You said we'd go to Daddy's park 
today!"



She suppressed a sigh. Yes, she had told him she'd take him to Daddy's park 
on the way home today but she'd been hoping he might have forgotten about 
it. Apparently not. "Any chance we could do that tomorrow instead?" she 
asked him.



His pouting at this suggestion quickly got the better of her, especially 
when he yelled, "But you promised!"



"Okay, okay," she assured him, planting herself behind the wheel. "We'll go 
to Daddy's park. But just for a little while."



"Yay!" he yelled delighted. "We're going to Daddy's park!"



Daddy's park, known to the rest of San Jose as the Kenneth Frazier Memorial 
Park, was only two miles away from her school, on the border between a 
middle class neighborhood and a semi-ghetto. It was not much as far as parks 
went. Composed of only three acres, it contained a playground, a small grove 
of Oak trees, a few cement paths, and a couple of basketball courts. She 
parked her Volvo in the small parking lot adjacent to it and unbuckled her 
son from his car seat so he could run free. As was always the case, the 
first place he went was the plaque that dedicated the park to her husband.



The plaque was just adjacent to the playground, a granite block with her 
husband's name and dates of birth and death on it. Little Ken ran his 
fingers over the dates and then traced the letters in the inscription, 
letters he could not yet read but that he'd long since memorized. IN MEMORY 
OF OFFICER KENNETH FRAZIER, SAN JOSE POLICE DEPARTMENT, it said, WHO GAVE 
HIS LIFE IN SERVICE OF THE CITIZENS OF THIS CITY.



"Daddy," Ken Jr. whispered, almost in awe as he stared at the plaque. "They 
named this park for Daddy."



"That's right, sweetie," she told him. "This is Daddy's park. His name will 
be there forever."



"Forever," Ken Jr. said. And with that, the spell was seemingly broken. He 
turned from the plaque and headed for the playground. Within a minute he was 
climbing on the monkey bars like the monkey he was, terrifying his mother by 
ascending all the way to the top.



She buried her motherly concerns for his safety and walked over to one of 
the benches that bracketed the play area. On the other benches a few other 
mothers were sitting, watching the smattering of kids who were playing 
alongside Ken Jr. None of them paid her any attention as she sat down alone. 
Beyond the monkey bars a few other kids were playing in the oak grove, 
including one who was nearly fifty feet up in the branches of a tree. In the 
basketball courts some older kids-teenagers mostly-were heavily involved in 
a game of three on three. Their immature curses came drifting over from time 
to time, occasionally drawing a disapproving look from one of the younger 
kids' mothers.



Annie twirled her hair in her fingers a few times and watched her son climb 
and jump and slide. She looked at her watch, knowing that for every minute 
she stayed in San Jose, the traffic would be that much worse when she headed 
back up the freeway towards her home in Pleasanton. Experience told her that 
if she allowed Ken Jr. to play for fifteen minutes he wouldn't protest too 
hard when she forced him out of there. That meant she had about nine minutes 
left. She settled in to wait, her mind not thinking of much, just enjoying 
the pre-spring warmth the ocean currents had brought the South Bay on this 
day.



A man came walking up the cement path from the direction of the far parking 
lot-the one opposite where she had left her Volvo. He looked, at first 
glance, to be nothing more than a lower class city dweller, the kind of 
person who was no stranger to living on the streets or spending the 
occasional night in jail. He was tall, with long, obviously dyed blonde hair 
that was tied back in a ponytail. A pair of cheap sunglasses covered his 
eyes. A battered San Jose State sweater covered his torso and a pair of 
faded jeans covered his legs. He was someone she should have dismissed from 
her mind immediately, perhaps with a slight sense of caution and distaste, 
but instead, she found her eyes instantly riveted to him for some reason.



"What the hell?" she whispered to herself, wondering why this man had 
attracted her attention so much. She felt no sense of danger from him-not 
that she was the most streetwise woman in the world-but her heart began to 
race in her chest all the same. After a moment she realized that he looked a 
little bit like Ken, her dead husband, or at least he looked like Ken would 
look ten years or so younger and with long, blonde hair. The facial features 
were what were doing it. The nose and the lips looked almost exactly the 
same, as did the manner of walking. It was weird, she thought, trying to 
turn her eyes away. This man could be Ken's younger brother, the resemblance 
was that strong.



He continued to stroll toward her, seemingly in no particular hurry. She had 
the impression he was looking at her but she couldn't tell for sure since 
the dark glasses hid his eyes. With each step that brought him closer to 
her, the resemblance to Ken grew stronger. By the time he was twenty feet 
away, the chills were running freely up and down her spine. If she hadn't 
known better, if she hadn't seen her husband's body in a cryogenic storage 
tank in Los Angeles with her own eyes, she would have sworn this was Ken 
wearing a disguise.



Her breath almost froze in her lungs when the man passed directly in front 
of her and then stopped. He turned toward her, his face expressionless, but 
his hands trembling just the slightest bit. She should have been alarmed by 
him stopping before her but somehow she wasn't.



"Hello," the man said, with a voice that even sounded like Ken's, not just 
superficially, but exactly. "A nice day, isn't it?"



"Uh..." she stammered, her heart hammering in her chest now, "Uh... yeah... 
I mean... uh sure, it is."



"You wouldn't believe how good it feels to have wind blowing in your face," 
he said. "Or how the smell of wet grass is almost intoxicating at times. Or 
even the moon." He pointed upward, where a pale, quarter moon was thirty 
degrees above the horizon. "Sometimes I think that's the most beautiful 
thing in the solar system. You ever thought of the moon that way?"



Again, his statement should have alarmed her, should have put her hackles 
up. This man was spouting some pretty weird shit. But her body felt nothing 
like fear at his words. Instead, she felt wonder. His voice sounded so much 
like Ken's. So much. "No," she finally managed to say. "I've never really 
thought about the moon that way."



He nodded as if he had expected her to say that. "I suppose you haven't," he 
said. "It's one of those things you don't appreciate unless you don't have 
it anymore. Kind of like going outside whenever you want. A luxury reserved 
for Earth dwellers."



He had totally lost her with that one. She could almost hear his words 
whooshing over her head. She licked her lips a little and took a breath. "Is 
there uh... uh... something I can help you with?" she asked him.



A slight smile touched the man's face. "I noticed you looking at me as I 
walked up," he said.



"I'm uh... uh... sorry," she replied. "No offense. You uh... kind of look 
like someone I used to know."



The smile widened. "Maybe I am that someone," he said. "You never know when 
old friends are going to turn up. You look like someone I used to know, 
too."



She shook her head almost violently, feeling the first tinges of nervousness 
now. Not at the man himself, but at the realization that something very 
strange was going on here. "No," she told him. "I don't think so. My friend 
is... is... no longer with us."



"You mean dead?" the man asked.



She nodded. "Yes. He died a long time ago."



"Shot in a helicopter, was he?" he asked.



Adrenaline went pouring into her veins at these words. "Get away from me," 
she said. "Get away or I'll call the police."



The man didn't move. Instead, he took off his sunglasses, revealing a 
startlingly familiar set of brown eyes. "I don't think you really want to do 
that," he said.



Annie's hands were now shaking like a paint mixer, her heart hammering at 
nearly 160 beats per minute. She felt a sheen of nervous sweat break out on 
her forehead. "No," she whispered. "This can't be. You're dead. You can't be 
standing in front of me."



"I'm not a ghost, Annie," Ken told her. "There's nothing supernatural about 
this. It's really me."



"It can't be," she insisted. "It can't!"



"I told you I'd see you again someday, didn't I? Well here I am."



"Oh my God," she said, her eyes wide in terror, but also with hope. How 
could this be happening? How could Ken be standing right her in front of 
her?



"God had nothing to do with it," Ken said. "Our descendents did... or they 
will anyway. It is me though. Ken Frazier, the man you married, the man who 
gave you that child over there. I'm back, Annie. I'm back if you'll take me 
back."



What she was being told was impossible, but her eyes could not deny it. This 
was Ken. Somehow, someway, Ken was actually standing before her. And 
something inside of her was not the least bit surprised by it. Something 
inside had been expecting this all along. "Ken," she whispered. "This is... 
I mean... I mean... oh wow."



He chuckled. "Oh wow is right," he said. "It's been quite a journey, Annie, 
but I found my way back to you."



"How?" she said.



"It's kind of a long story," he said. "You wouldn't believe what I've done, 
what I've seen, since the last time I talked to you. I've been in space, 
Annie. I've flown on aircraft on Mars. I've gone hydro-diving on Saturn. 
I've gone through an artificial wormhole out beyond Pluto."



"That's crazy... Ken," she said, the name coming from her mouth much more 
easily than she would've expected.



"As crazy as me standing before you right now while there's another version 
of me in a warehouse in Los Angeles?"



Another shudder worked its way through her. "Oh Jesus," she whispered, her 
voice cracked.



"He had nothing to do with it either," Ken said. "As I said, it's quite the 
tale I have to tell. Would you like to hear it?"



She nodded, now almost incapable of speech.



"May I sit down with you?" he asked.



"Yes," she said. "Please. Sit down... Ken."



The smile grew broader. "Can I have a hug first?" he asked. "It's been so 
long since I've put my arms around you. I'm not sure I can take another 
minute without it."



She didn't answer verbally, but a second later she flew off the bench and 
took him in her arms, squeezing him almost painfully, her mouth kissing his 
cheek, his nose, his lips. Any lingering doubts as to the authenticity of 
this encounter disappeared at that moment. Nothing had ever seemed more 
right.



+++++



Washington, District of Columbia

June 1, 2008



Dr. Stephen Lindley emerged from the Metro station and began walking briskly 
toward the towering Washington Monument before him. The mall was crowded 
this morning, as it was every morning in the summer months, with hundreds, 
if not thousands of tourists walking to and fro, snapping pictures, clumping 
together in crowds at the various attractions. Lindley wiped sweat from his 
brow as his feet carried him toward his destination. It was only 9:45 in the 
morning but already the heat was oppressive, with humidity nearly thick 
enough to cut with a knife.



What a miserable place for a nation's capital, he thought bitterly as a fat 
mosquito buzzed near his ear. He could see why they would move it to Denver 
after the upcoming war. Denver had miserable winters, that was true, but at 
least it was reasonably pleasant in the summer months. Oh well, he would 
only be in this shithole of a city for another six hours. He would check for 
Stanhope at the appointed place just on the off chance he had escaped the 
greenies. It was more than likely a fool's mission, but if Stanhope did show 
up and he did have extra batteries or a charging system for the PC he'd 
brought with him, his rise to the seat of power would be ever so much 
easier.



He took no particular security precautions as he strolled to the base of the 
monument. The thought that someone might be tailing him had never even 
crossed his mind. Though he had no idea what had become of the greenies who 
had followed the Rumsfeld back to this primitive time-they might have gone 
back through a return wormhole or they might have settled on the planetary 
surface or, most likely, they might have been given some time-release poison 
such as the WestHem government had tried to push off on him-the thought that 
they could have found out about this rendezvous through interrogating 
Stanhope or through monitored communications had never appeared in his 
rather dim imagination.



He reached the base of the monument and looked around at the crowd, his eyes 
searching for the familiar profile of Stanhope. No such profile was in 
evidence. He checked his watch-a gold, top of the line Rolex-and then found 
a bench to sit down on. It was only 9:50. He settled in to wait.



He stayed until eleven just to be sure. By that time, after walking around 
the base of the monument three times and looking over every face in the 
crowd, he felt safe in assuming that Stanhope would not show. He had 
probably been shot down in his escape pod shortly after abandoning the 
Rumsfeld and was now nothing but a scum of ashes floating in the South 
Pacific somewhere. That idea in and of itself was not a particularly 
unpleasant one. He had never really liked Stanhope, nor had he really ever 
trusted him. He had only conspired with him out of necessity. True, the 
acquisition of a new PC or a means to charge his dead one would have been 
nice, but he was doing just fine without it. The identity he had set himself 
up with prior to his PC dying was a wealthy one, with more than two million 
dollars in assets. He had used this capital to purchase a house in the one 
portion of the United States that would be completely untouched by Chinese 
bombers in the coming war. From there, he would begin to build his empire, 
focusing mostly on stocks he knew were going to rise with the war. Yes, by 
the time the armistice was signed in Tiannamen Square he would be in a 
position to start influencing politicians in the great WestHem tradition. 
 From there, he and his yet to be produced descendents would be the most 
powerful people in the world by the beginning of the Space Colonization Age.



He walked slowly back to the Metro station adjacent to the mall and waited 
patiently for the next train to arrive. He boarded it, pushing in among the 
throngs of passengers, and found a seat near the front of the last car. The 
train only took him three stops down the line-an easy walking distance had 
he chosen to do so-before he disembarked and walked half a block to the 
entrance of the Washington DC Hilton Hotel, where he had stayed in one of 
the suites the previous night. He entered the lobby and went to the 
elevators, riding up to the top floor. It was time for him to leave this 
depressing, muggy, miserable city and head back to the tropical paradise in 
which he lived.



His suite was nearly fifteen hundred square feet of luxurious living space. 
It included a hot tub-which he had put to good use the night before with a 
couple of two thousand dollar a night whores-an oversized bed, a sitting 
room, and a fully stocked bar. He soaked in the blessed air conditioning for 
a few moments and then made himself a scotch on the rocks. As he sipped it 
he picked up the phone and called the chartered jet company he did business 
with. He told them he wished to leave for home as soon as possible. They 
promised to have a limousine in front of his hotel in thirty-five minutes 
and to have him at the airport twenty minutes after that. He thanked the 
faceless receptionist brusquely, as a rich man should thank a mere servant, 
and then drained the rest of his scotch. He was just about to get up and 
start packing his belongings when there was a knock on the door.



"Who is it?" he yelled, careful to inject the right amount of annoyance into 
his tone. He wasn't really annoyed but he was playing the part of a rich and 
powerful man and had an image to uphold.



"Hotel maintenance department," a male voice responded. "Can I come in for a 
moment, sir?"



He sighed and walked over to the door, opening it up. On the other side was 
a tall, brown-haired man dressed in a khaki uniform shirt and slacks. A tool 
belt was strapped around his waist and an identification tag hung from his 
shirt pocket.



"Is there a problem?" Lindley asked sourly.



"Just a little one, sir," the man told him. "There have been some problems 
with the toilets up on this level and they told me to come check all of them 
out."



"I haven't had any problems with the toilet."



"Good to hear, sir," the man said. "Hopefully you won't develop one either. 
Do you mind if I just take a quick look though?"



Lindley shrugged and stepped aside. "Do what you need to do," he told him, 
dismissing the man from his view.



The man thanked him graciously and headed for the bathroom. Lindley watched 
him for a moment until he started pulling the tank off the toilet. At that 
point he decided he'd seen enough. One thing he had not gotten used to in 
this culture was the primitive plumbing fixtures they used. They were noisy 
and smelly and cold to the touch, nothing like the modern toilets he'd been 
accustomed to on modern Earth. While the maintenance man tinkered and banged 
on the toilet, he went to the sleeping room and began to pack his clothing 
into his suitcase. Before he even got halfway done, the maintenance man 
reappeared.



"Everything is perfect in there, sir," he said. "I apologize for the 
intrusion."



Lindley gave him a shallow look and a non-verbal dismissal and a moment 
later, the man left.



Lindley finished packing his clothing and then went into the bathroom to get 
his toiletry articles. He packed his shaver, his toothbrush, his toothpaste, 
his combs and hair gel, his deodorant and after-shave. He then called for a 
bellboy to come get his luggage.



Twenty minutes later he was down in the lobby. Ten minutes after that, he 
was in the back of the limo heading for the airport. An hour after that, he 
was in a private Lear forty-two thousand feet above Virginia, heading for a 
refueling stop in San Francisco. Barring any head winds or landing delays, 
he would be back in his own home by nine that night.



+++++



The man the world knew as David Brown but whom his new wife called Ken sat 
in a Washington DC hotel room, a laptop computer open on the desk before 
him. As was his usual habit when alone, he was naked, his fit body soaking 
up the atmosphere of the room. He sipped from a glass that contained two 
ounces of Jack Daniels, a few ice cubes, and four ounces of Pepsi-cola. In 
the ashtray beside him were several cigarette butts and the remains of a 
joint he'd smoked earlier in the day while staring at a red dot as it moved 
across a map of the United States on the laptop. It was now two in the 
morning and the red dot had finally come to what seemed like a halt.



The red dot in question was produced by a tiny transmitter Ken had planted 
inside Lindley's deodorant container when he'd entered his hotel room 
earlier that day. The transmitter, receiver, and supporting software had 
cost him nearly ten thousand dollars but they were top of the line, 
satellite-linked, GPS-based technology, about the best thing available for 
private use in this day and age. He could now get a position fix on that 
particular deodorant container no matter where on the planet it went-a fix 
accurate to less than a meter. What his software was now telling him was 
that Lindley's deodorant-and more than likely Lindley himself-were now 
stationary at 23 Lihue Lane, which was a small street on a cliff overlooking 
the Pacific Ocean just outside Lahaina, on the Hawaiian Island of Maui. He 
had found what was, presumably, Lindley's home.



Of course he could have taken out Lindley in Washington, either on the mall 
itself or in his hotel room. But the death of Lindley might not have been 
enough to protect the time stream. Lindley was still in possession of a 
WestHem PC in addition to whatever other futuristic devices or articles he 
might have been carrying with him when he originally came down. It was vital 
that those things be collected and destroyed as well to insure that no 
twenty-first century investigator happened across them and discovered 
technology that did not yet exist. For that reason he had planted the 
transmitter and followed its course back to Hawaii.



Now that he had an address, he put the tracking software into the background 
of the computer and called up his search software. David Brown was not 
nearly as well off as the man he was tracking, but he was certainly wealthy 
enough to afford a subscription to the best commercially available private 
investigation search engine. Though it was not nearly as intrusive as what 
the San Jose PD, or any other police department had access to, it was more 
than enough for his purposes here. It took him less than five minutes to 
learn that Lindley's address was registered to a man named Walter Lincoln, 
who had an alleged date of birth of January 1, 1960.



"Mr. Lincoln," Ken said to himself as he saved this information, "You're not 
the most potent bud on the pot plant, are you?"



It certainly didn't seem so. Walter Lincoln was the name Lindley had 
registered under at the Washington Hilton-a fact that a fifty-dollar bill 
and a few flirtatious looks had weaseled out of the registration clerk that 
morning. The moron had actually used his real name when he'd registered.



Armed with a name, address, and date of birth, Ken soon had a wealth of 
information about his prey. Calling on Hawaiian DMV files, he learned that 
Mr. Lincoln had a BMW, a Mercedes, and a Harley-Davidson Fatboy registered 
to him. Calling on credit reporting files, he found that Lincoln did his 
banking at the First Bank of Hawaii and the Nagamoro Savings and Loan. He 
had an excellent credit rating with his only outstanding debt being the 1.3 
million dollar mortgage on his home. And, most important, he was unmarried 
and there was no other person using his address as a mailing location.



Ken saved all the information and then called up an airline-ticketing site. 
As he smoked another cigarette and took a hit off the roach, he booked a 
7:30 PM flight from Washington to Honolulu and a transfer flight from 
Honolulu to Lahaina.



+++++



He planned the murder as only a former cop could, taking no chances, 
eliminating every loose end he possibly could. He staked out Lindley's house 
for nearly two weeks, watching his comings and goings and, most importantly, 
what he did when he was home. He found that Lindley lived alone but had a 
maid come in three times a week to clean up after him. Lindley had no 
friends as far as he could tell but he did have hookers come to his 
house-sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs-about as often as the maid visits. 
Through a tap on his phone, Ken found the only phone calls he made were to 
arrange for these prostitutes' visits through a popular escort service that 
did business on the island. It was this aspect of Lindley's life around 
which Ken formulated his plan.



Acquiring the gun was the most dangerous part. Ken had guns of his own, of 
course-Annie had kept the various handguns and hunting weapons he'd owned in 
his previous life-but he didn't dare use them for this particular mission. 
Instead, he stole one in Honolulu after staking out a gun store and 
following a new owner home. Two days later, he was able to steal the weapon 
out of the gun owner's car when he stopped at a bar after a few hours at the 
shooting range. It was a nice weapon, a Smith and Wesson .40 caliber. Using 
skills he'd learned on the Internet, he fashioned a silencer using an oil 
filter and some steel wool.



On June 21, he made his move.



His phone tap told him that Lindley had called the escort service and 
arranged for two of his favorite whores to visit him at nine that night. Ken 
simply called back the service and, pretending to be Lindley, cancelled the 
visit. At nine he pulled up in front of Lindley's house, driving a Toyota 
Camry he'd stolen two hours earlier from the lot of a bargain tourist hotel 
in Lahaina. He parked to the far right side of the driveway, where there was 
no view from inside the house. His reconnaissance had already told him that 
Lindley had no security cameras. He pulled a pair of latex gloves onto his 
hands so he would leave no fingerprints. He then stepped out of the car and 
walked purposefully up the walkway to the front door, the .40 caliber in his 
right hand behind his back, the silencer tucked safely into a fanny pack 
strapped around his waist. Standing off to the side, well out of range of 
the peephole or any of the windows, he rang the doorbell, surprised at how 
calm he felt now that the final moment had come.



The door swung open and he found himself face to face with Lindley. The 
pleasant, wanting smile on the doctor's face disappeared in an instance as 
he saw a man standing on his porch instead of his two whores. His expression 
turned to fear as he recognized the face as the maintenance man from 
Washington.



"What's this?" he asked, trying to sound tough.



Ken brought the gun forward and pointed it at him. "This is a home invasion 
robbery," Ken said, his voice even tougher. "If you want to live, you'll do 
exactly as I say."



Lindley shuddered and trembled for a moment, his eyes flitting from place to 
place as if looking for help. There was none to be found. "I don't have any 
money in the house," he told Ken. "Everything is tied up in stocks and 
bonds."



Ken ignored him and stepped forward, pushing the door open and stepping 
through. Lindley took a few steps back, putting his hands up. Ken kicked the 
door shut behind him and pushed Lindley towards the nearest couch, which 
appeared to be an 18th Century antique. "Sit down," he told him.



"Look," Lindley said. "We can talk about this, can't we? There's no need 
for..."



"I said, sit down," Ken told him menacingly. "I don't have time for this 
shit."



Lindley walked to the couch on wobbly legs and sat down. Ken relaxed a 
little when he did so. Like any cop, he felt better when his subject was off 
his feet and unable to move quickly.



"I'm going to ask you a simple question, Dr. Lindley, and you're going to 
give me a simple answer," Ken told him.



Lindley paled even further as he heard his name spoken. "What did you call 
me?" he asked.



"You're Dr. Stephen Lindley," Ken said. "You were born in WestHem and you 
traveled back in time aboard the WSS Rumsfeld. I don't have time for any 
pathetic denials or a game of twenty questions. I'm here for one thing. I 
will ask you one question and you will answer it for me. If you lie to me, I 
will kill you. If you cooperate, you will live. Do you understand me, 
Lindley?"



He swallowed nervously, his eyes remaining fixed on the weapon in Ken's 
hand. "Yes," he said, his voice barely audible.



"Good," Ken said, nodding. "Where is the PC you brought back with you?"



Lindley opened his mouth, obviously about to deny that he had a PC.



"No lies," Ken warned before anything could come out of it. "Remember, my 
time is short and so is my patience. Where is it?"



He seemed to take the threat seriously. "It's in my safe, upstairs," he 
said.



Ken breathed a sigh of relief. He had been afraid Lindley might have stored 
it in a safe deposit box somewhere-something that would have complicated his 
plan immensely. "Let's go get it," he told Lindley. "Stand up slowly and 
walk in front of me. Don't make any sudden moves."



The doctor led him upstairs, his fear and adrenaline so great he could 
barely walk a straight line. The bedroom was quite large. It had a bay 
window that overlooked the crashing surf below. His bed was a waterbed 
directly out of the seventies, complete with a leopard skin bedspread. A 
huge walk-in closet was opposite the window. Lindley opened it and went 
inside. On a shelf above the hanging clothes was a fireproof safe. He 
stopped before it.



"Is there a gun in that safe?" Ken asked.



Lindley hesitated for a second and then nodded. "Yes."



"Open the safe," Ken said. "If you try to pick up the gun, you'll see your 
brains flying out the front of your head before your fingers can even close 
on it, understand?"



"I understand," he said.



With trembling hands he worked the dial, messing up the process three times 
before he managed to do it correctly. He flipped the latch and swung the 
door open. Ken looked over his shoulder and saw the vague shape of a 
semi-automatic pistol among a clutter of other items in the dim space.



"Take out the PC, very carefully," Ken told him.



He reached in and dug around for a few seconds, making an almost comical 
effort to keep his hands clear of the gun. At last he grasped something and 
pulled it out.



"Let me see it," Ken said.



He turned slowly and opened his palm. Resting in it was a small, black 
device the size of a cellular phone. It had the name brand of a WestHem 
electronics company on the front.



"Very good," Ken told him, backing out of the closet. "Now go sit in that 
desk chair over there." He pointed across the room toward a small writing 
desk. "Set the PC on the bed as you go by."



Lindley dropped it where told and sat where told. He looked up at Ken. "Do 
you have a power supply for it?" he asked. "Is that why you want it?"



"Something like that," Ken said.



"I can help you," he said excitedly. "I know how to use this thing. I know 
which databases to use to program anything you want. I can make us Gods. Let 
me be your partner."



"I don't need any partners," Ken told him. "Is there anything else that you 
brought back from the future? Any other PCs, or weapons, or electronics."



His lack of hesitation confirmed for Ken he was telling the truth. 
"Nothing," he said. "That asshole Stanhope only gave me the PC. Look, I 
really think you should consider letting me help you out with that thing. 
You're a greenie, right?"



"We greenies find that a rankin' offensive term coming from an Earthling 
mouth, Dr. Lindley," he said blandly.



"I'm sorry," Lindley said. "Martian. If you're a Martian, you won't know how 
to use a WestHem PC. Our technology is much more advanced than yours. Do you 
even know what we can do with something like that? I can change your whole 
identity around. I can give you a bank account with ten million dollars in 
it. I can..."



"You can shut your mouth," Ken told him. "Your assistance won't be needed. 
Now turn around in that chair and face forward."



Lindley paled as he heard this. "How come?"



"I'm going to handcuff you to the chair before I leave," he said. "The maid 
comes tomorrow morning, doesn't she? She'll find you and let you go."



"You're going to leave me here all night?" Lindley sniveled. "You don't have 
to do that! I won't call the police. What would I tell them, anyway?"



"Just do what you're told, Lindley," Ken barked. "Turn around and put your 
hands behind your back."



Slowly, reluctantly, Lindley did as he was told, turning himself and the 
chair so they were facing the desk. As soon as he could no longer see what 
Ken was doing, Ken opened his fanny pack and removed the bulky silencer. 
Though the nearest neighbor was more than a quarter mile away, it was best 
not to take chances. As had been the case at Roseville Hospital, if the cops 
were alerted before he cleared the area, they would be able to easily trap 
him inside a perimeter. The road outside the house was the only way back 
down from the cliff.



"Listen," Lindley pleaded, "Won't you at least consider letting me help you 
with the PC? I mean, there's so much it's capable of."



Ken slipped the silencer over the barrel of the weapon and tightened it in 
place. He extended the gun, pointing it at the back of Lindley's head, 
aiming at the base of the skull, where the medulla was located, the section 
of the brain that controlled breathing and heartbeat. Without allowing 
himself to think about what he was doing, he pulled the trigger. The gun 
made a muted pop, like a cork flying out of a champagne bottle. A small hole 
appeared in the back of Lindley's head. The front of his head exploded in a 
spray of blood, brains, teeth, and skull fragments, splattering all over the 
desk in front of him. He slumped over to the side and didn't move.



Ken slowly lowered the gun, feeling his heart pounding in his chest, feeling 
a vague sense of nausea deep in his stomach. He had just killed a man, shot 
him execution style from behind. He had killed people before-dozens at 
least, maybe more-during his stint as a helicopter pilot in the Persian Gulf 
War. But that had been from afar, while looking at glowing images of tracked 
vehicles from several miles away. He had never stood up close to someone and 
shot him, never seen him go from life to lifelessness in an instant because 
of his hand. He knew he should feel guilty but he didn't. He had done what 
needed to be done, that was all. He had protected the time stream, prevented 
the usurpation of thousands, maybe millions of lives.



He unscrewed the silencer and put it back in his fanny pack, then safed the 
pistol and put it in his belt. He searched around on the floor until he 
found the expended shell casing and put it in his pocket. Then he walked 
over to Lindley's still-open safe and rummaged around in it, seeing what 
else it held. The pistol inside was a Browning 9mm and didn't even have a 
round jacked into the chamber. There were stock certificates, a copy of his 
birth certificate, documentation about his house, and a small bag that 
contained about an eighth of an ounce of cocaine. It contained nothing else 
that had come from the future. Ken closed the safe and left the closet. He 
took one last look at Lindley's body and picked up the PC from the bed. He 
put in his pocket and left the house.



He dumped the gun and the silencer in the ocean three miles from Lindley's 
home, and abandoned the car on the outskirts of Lahaina. He kept the PC. He 
knew he should get rid of it as well, but something told him he shouldn't, 
that it might come in handy some day. He packed it in his luggage and the 
next day booked a flight on the same air charter company Lindley himself had 
used. It was expensive but it would keep security agents from going through 
his luggage.



+++++



June 23, 2008

Corpus Christi, Texas



Their house was only a few steps above modest, encompassing 3000 square feet 
of living space on two acres of land overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. The 
night was warm and muggy but far from unpleasant. Ken and Annie sat in 
redwood recliner chairs in their backyard watching the navigation lights of 
ships out in the gulf. A baby monitor sat between them, tuned to the 
frequency of the companion transmitter in Ken Jr's second floor bedroom. 
They could hear the regular pattern of his breathing-a soothing, almost 
serene sound.



"So what's the difference between this stuff and the stuff you get from that 
Mexican guy?" Annie asked as she took the marijuana pipe and lighter from 
his hands.



He exhaled the fragrant hit he had just taken and took a few breaths before 
he answered. "This is Maui Wowie," he told her. "The best shit commercially 
available in the United States. You haven't smoked out until you've smoked 
out with this ganja."



She giggled a little and shook her head. Even after all these months she 
still couldn't believe the strange habits her husband had picked up during 
his time away from her. Marijuana smoking was just one thing. There were 
things they did in the bedroom-and outside of it. A whole new dimension of 
sexual experimentation had opened up for them since his return, things her 
prudish upbringing had never imagined before. "It smells like crap," she 
said.



"And tastes like it, too," he said. "But wait until you feel it hit you. 
It's a very mellow stoning. Almost as good as Martian bud, and that's saying 
a buttload."



She giggled again. His language was something else that had changed 
considerably, especially when he was drinking or smoking. "And you're sure 
this stuff is going to be legal in a few years, right?"



"Fuckin' aye," he said. "About mid-way through the war they'll legalize it 
to help raise tax dollars. So smoke up now while you can still get the 
thrill of doing something wrong."



"Fuckin' aye," she agreed, mimicking his words, and took a tremendous hit.



After only three hits they were both quite annihilated. As was usually the 
case when they did this, their libidos soon kicked into overdrive and Ken 
moved over to her chair and began kissing her. Soon their hands were groping 
under clothing, seeking out bare flesh, stroking erogenous zones. And then 
the clothing began to come off, cast aside like excess baggage. They coupled 
slowly at first but soon heated up to full-blown passion, grunting and 
sweating. It went on for nearly twenty minutes, with Annie shuddering her 
way through three orgasms before Ken shot his seedless offering deep into 
her body, his reproductive genes having been shut off before he'd even been 
awakened.



After, they lay against each other, just holding and stroking, occasionally 
sharing a loving kiss.



"I love you, David Brown," Annie told him. "I'm glad you came back into my 
life."



"I love you too, Mrs. Brown," he replied. "And I'm glad you were still here 
for me."



She watched him for a moment in silence, looking at his young face, at the 
cheeks that never grew whiskers because of genetic manipulation, at the trim 
stomach that burned fat before it could collect. He had been changed by his 
time on Mars, of that there could be no doubt, but in many ways he was still 
the same person he had once been, the man she had fallen in love with, who 
had given her a child. She watched his eyes as they stared up at the night 
sky. She looked where he was staring and saw the red dot that was the planet 
Mars. She knew he was thinking of Slurry, the woman he had loved there, the 
woman he had left to rejoin her.



"I'm sure she's all right," she told him softly. "You did everything you 
were supposed to do."



He nodded. "I killed a man, Annie," he said. "I put a gun to a man's head 
and pulled the trigger to help protect them and everyone like them. I 
committed murder for them."



"You did what you had to do," she said.



"I know," he said. "I didn't enjoy it. I couldn't do it for a living. But I 
don't regret it. I don't feel guilty about it. He was a bad man, an evil man 
even. Someone who might have turned out worse than Hitler if I wouldn't have 
acted. What bothers me is that I'll never know if I really did any good for 
Slurry, for Huffy, for Spanky, for all of them. What if he managed to change 
things just enough to keep their wormhole from opening? They might be out 
there right now, all of them dead aboard that ship-dead of starvation, just 
drifting on autopilot toward the sun to be burned up." He sighed. "That 
image haunts me sometimes."



"You did what you could," she told him. "They're probably all right."



"But I'll never know, Annie. I'll never know."



She had no answer for him, so she did the best that she could. She held him. 
Before long, they were making love again.



+++++



October 15, 2008

Corpus Christi, Texas



An early rainstorm battered the windows of his upstairs office, the wind 
causing the window to shake every now and then, the visibility cut to only a 
mile or so out over the water. Ken watched the whitecaps on the gray water 
of the Gulf for a while and then turned on his computer, waiting patiently 
while it powered up.



As on most weekday afternoons, he was alone in the house. Annie was at her 
new job teaching second grade at a nearby elementary school. Ken Jr. was at 
an even more nearby elementary school, sitting in kindergarten class 
starting the long road of education that would eventually make him a medical 
doctor. Ken would pick him up in another two hours-his son-the boy who would 
always think of him as a stepfather, who could never know the truth. They 
had gotten rid of all the pictures of Ken from his previous life to keep him 
from noticing the resemblance. They communicated with no one, including 
Annie's sister and all her friends from San Jose, who would recognize David 
Brown as Ken. In a way Annie had given up just as much as he had for their 
life together. And she seemed just as happy to have done so.



Ken put these thoughts aside and opened his email program-his usual first 
step after turning on the computer for the day. There were a few emails from 
new acquaintances he and Annie had made in Texas and the usual amount of 
spam, which he began to delete one by one. Near the bottom of the list was a 
message that looked like spam at a glance but that made his heart nearly 
stop when he saw the address of the sender.



SlurryfromMars@Calistoga.net was the address. Slurry from Mars? 
Calistoga.net? Was it possible? Was he hallucinating?



With a trembling hand he used the mouse to click open the email. His eyes 
widened and began to tear up as he read.



April 13, 2008



Dear Ken,



It's not very Martian to mince words, so I won't do it now. If you're 
reading this email, than a wormhole has opened up for us out here in deep 
space. I'm writing this now, two days before it is scheduled to open. Huffy 
brought us into position at the pre-arranged spot right on schedule. Now all 
we have to do is wait for the time to be right. I will program the ship's 
computer to send this to the Earth Internet with instructions not to deliver 
it until six months after we are gone. If the wormhole opens as it is 
supposed to, I will transmit it just as the acceleration starts to pull us 
in. If the wormhole does not open, I will delete it and you will never hear 
from me. Huffy gave her approval to this plan, agreeing with my rationale 
that you deserved to know if we made it. After all, it will be you who makes 
that wormhole open. I pray to Laura that you will be reading this on October 
15, as much for your own piece of mind as for our lives.



Live your life to the fullest, Ken, and always remember that I love you. 
Take care of Annie and that child who will one day colonize our planet. Have 
wet dreams always,



Your Wife, Slurry



P.S.



Thank you





He wiped the tears from his eyes as he pondered her words.



"No skin off my ass, Slurry," he said. "No skin off my ass."