This is a lot of grass to cut

“Be the change you want to see in the world,” said Hauser and smiled at his doomsday machine. He was fairly certain that Gandhi hadn’t intended his words to be applied to genocide weapons, but Hauser felt it appropriate. “Chaos is change, right?” he asked nobody in particular.

The nobody in particular was the professional event planner that Hauser had hired. The thin man laughed nervously and desperately wished he hadn’t taken the scientist’s money. He was hot, uncomfortable, and had a shrimp buffet that was taking a rapid dislike to the summer heat. The planner coughed politely and let his eyes tilt towards the party guests. The term guest was a rather liberal use of the word. Most guests weren’t kidnapped, held at gunpoint by armed guards, and ordered to enjoy themselves.

Hauser ignored the planner, and pushed his horribly out of fashion sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. He was far too engrossed in cooing over his weapon of mass destruction. For a doomsday weapon it was remarkably simple. The yacht that he currently stood on the deck of, was sitting in the middle of Lake Michigan. Several hundred feet below was a tiny fault line that had been packed with enough hydraulic lifts to move McDonalds; All of them. The sudden shift in the lake bed will create a tsunami that would wipe out Chicago. The loss of Gary, Indiana was considered collateral public service.

Hauser felt the this would show that officious prick Unterstadt how to properly destroy a major metropolitan city. Heinric Unterstadt had been bragging at the club for months now about some type of solar death ray he had designed. Hauser was fairly sure he was full of shit, and made a point of calling him out on it in front of the other members. Unterstadt responded in with a rationally constructed rebuttal that called into question the marital status of Hauser’s parents. This led to a series of petty and backstabbing academic papers, followed by a series of petty and backstabbing symposia lectures, followed by a series of petty and backstabbing MySpace posts. It was at that point that Hauser decided to prove his point by dropping Lake Michigan on top of Daley Plaza.

Hauser looked at the control panel in front of him and giggled to himself in anticipation. He was something of a traditionalist when it came to super science aesthetics, and demanded the typical trappings customary for those with malicious intelligence and penchant for misanthropy. As such, the center of the panel featured an unnecessarily large button with a cherry red finish and neon lighting around its circumference to emphasize its importance. The entire ensemble shone brilliantly in the sunlight. In fact, it was bit too bright. Hauser looked up at the sky which seemed to have recently acquired a second and slightly smaller sun.

“Son of a-”, said Hauser.

The rest of his commentary was drowned out by the deafening sound of a space based mirror firing a solar death ray straight into Lake Michigan. The great lake erupted into a boiling inferno as several hundred cubic miles of water evaporated into the sky. Soon all that was left was a parched lake bed with several hundred hydraulic pistons, a teetering yacht, and a very unhappy scientist. Hauser clenched his jaw and glared silently off into the distance as the death ray proceeded to lay waste to the greater Chicago area.

As the surviving party hostages screamed in the background, the thin and somewhat battered event planner cleared his throat. “Since the party seems to have been, um, postponed, I assume that you will not be requiring my services any longer?” he asked Hauser.

“No, I suppose not,” said Hauser who remained fixated on the carnage in the distance. He pulled out a pistol and casually shot the event planner. The attempt at some type of catharsis didn’t make him feel any better. Neither did his guests’ ignored pleads for mercy as his minions opened fire on them. Instead his mind shifted gears, and his attention drifted up to the bright spot in the sky. Hauser’s eyes squinted not at the orbital mirror which had just ruined his three day weekend, but at the yellow star that powered it. The mental gears stopped and suddenly became very pleased with themselves at what they had just come up with.

“Yep, it’ll have to go,” he said.

Copyright JJ Kahrs, 2008

“Your rescue sucks,” said Dakota and frowned at the individual seated across from her. Agent Travis glared back and tugged at the ropes tying him down. Dakota blinked several times in an attempt to dismiss her grogginess. Sometime during the third act of Kim Jong Il’s unintentional horror film, her central nervous system decided to pass out in a last ditch effort to save her higher brain functions. When she finally came to, she found herself opposite her would be rescuer, looking a bit more captured than she would have liked.

“It’s part of the plan”, said Agent Travis.

“What plan would that be,” asked Dakota, “The plan to get captured?”

“Sarcasm isn’t going to help.”

“You know what also doesn’t help? BEING CAPTURED!”

Dakota’s outburst caught the attention of their Viking jailers, who up until now had been engrossed in animated discussion about class struggle, herring, and how exactly they were going to kill their prisoners.

“Silence American pig-dog-capitalist,” yelled Erik the Red, and then punched a random Viking within arm’s reach. If nothing else, his leadership style kept those under him attentive. It was also good for the reflexes.

Travis glared at the Viking and then sighed at Dakota.

“I had to get captured so they could take me to you and to whoever was running this operation,” he said.

“Kim Jong Il”, said Dakota.

“Not possible,” said Travis.

“Well… some of him. His head mostly.”

“We killed him in 2032 after the third Korean war.”

“You mind telling me why he’s here-“

“Now.”

“Huh?

“You want to know why he’s now. Trans-temporal grammar can get a bit tricky at first. After a while you used to past post future imperfect tense.”

“Anyway. Why here- er.. now?

“To destroy your accursed experiment,” said a mechanical voice with a thick Korean accent. The clicker-clack of spidery legs skittered out of the darkness, carrying with it an Elvisish head in a bell jar. The pistoned nightmare lurched to a stop so that it could gloat at eye-level with Agent Travis. “Once I have detonated my arsenal, I will have killed the architects of the capitalist virus that has plagued mankind,” said Kim Jong Il’s head. He clapped two of his metal limbs together and several Vikings wheeled a very large looking death ray into view. “This Continental Congress will smother the capitalist infant in its crib and unveil a new dawn on a communist future!”

“No it won’t, “ said Dakota.

“Damn right it won’t,” barked Travis.

“My death ray would disagree,” said Kim Jong Il.

“That’s not what I meant. It won’t work because Marxism was a direct rebuttal to Adam Smith style capitalism. Without post-colonial America’s push against mercantilism, there would be no framework to build socialist principles on. You would destroy communism too,” said Dakota.

Agent Travis blinked. The head of Kim Jon Il brooded silently in the face of logic. He did not like logic. Logic was something people without power had to deal with. He found that given enough guns, logic was whatever you declared it to be. The popular dissent found it hard to give a counter-argument once filled with bullets.

“Yes. Well. I guess we will see what the death ray thinks of your opinions won’t we,” he grumbled something to himself, and wiggled his robotic body to the side. “Guards! Prepare to fire upon my command.”

Dakota made some un-ladylike comments and began to panic.

“Relax. It’s all part of the plan,” said Agent Travis.

“Plan? What plan? The plan where you get captured? Or how about the plan where you leave me to go to a bar and drink?” snapped Dakota.

“I wasn’t there to drink. I was there to recruit,” said Travis.

“Recruit what? An army of drunks?!” yelled Dakota and found herself interrupted by a rumble and a rising tide of shouts and swearing that swelled in the distance. The Vikings became alarmed and scrambled to arms.

Agent Travis smiled. “No, an army of drunk Bostonians.”

Copyright JJ Kahrs, 2007

Victoria did all she could to ignore the itch where her eye used to be. The prickling fire ate at her, and she clenched her fist, lest it try to claw at her eye-patch. Slowly, her will loosened the grip on her hand and let it prove her trust. Fingers gently pressed against her face. She drug them along the scar tissue as if they were wrinkles in a bed sheet that could simply be smoothed out. Her hand resisted the urge to fiddle with the eye-patch and obediently returned to a warm coat pocket.

Victoria’s other eye was taking in the breathless view of the Martian morning. The distant sun crested the ocean of white clouds that stretched to the horizon below. All of which was blushed with the orange tint of the clear sky above. A frigid wind sent a uncontrolled shudder through Victoria, and she pulled her war-coat tight against her body. Cursing, she pushed her reflexes aside, and soon welcomed the numbing cold. It provided respite from the maddening itch of something no longer with her.

A moderately discreet cough behind Victoria tore her out of her indulgences and back to reality. She clenched her jaw, straightened her back, and turned to face the interloper treading on her precious moment alone. The chief engineer stood patiently at the hatch leading out to the conning tower. A veteran of many campaign seasons, the grey had started to creep its way up his sideburns. His coveralls were streaked and stained with years of grease, grime, and gods knows what else found down in the engine room; an engine room that the Chief rarely left. The fact that he had ventured above deck, made a poor attempt at combing his hair, and was patiently waiting for her was not lost on Victoria. This was not bad news. Bad news can be relayed. Worse news had to be given in person.

“Captain?” asked the Chief.

“What is it, Chief,” said Victoria.

“Good weather we have,” said the Chief. He looked away from his captain and out over the edge of the ship. The winds were blowing steady from the southwest, which would mean very little chop from updrafts or swells from the deep. It was perfect weather. All of this was obvious and typical of smalltalk aboard a skyship. Victoria opted not to give the Chief this conversational retreat.

“You going to tell me what’s on your mind?”

“It’s been a month, Captain,” said the Chief quietly. Victoria stared back silently until the itch in her eyesocket returned and she turned her back on him. Four weeks. Four weeks and not a single sighting of prey. If this were a military vessel then the quiet would be welcome amongst the crew. Pirates had the opposite attitude. Every minute they weren’t raiding a ship for bounty was a minute a pirate was losing money. The crew not only wanted action but demanded it. The captain had the responsibility to find them prey to sink their hungry teeth into. A long time without plunder made the crew edgey. Too long, and the crew would find themselves a new captain.

“My lieutenant making noise, is he?” said Victoria. The Chief grunted an affirmative.

“Understood. Thank you, Chief,” said Victoria. The old airman hesitated then nodded and went back below deck leaving her alone with her worry once more.

The itching grew into a burning that seared the inside of Victoria’s skull. Prudence would have taken her along a different course but something inside her had whispered that this was the heading to take. So onward they cut through the sky, taking them away from the winds thick with ice tankers, algae haulers, and passenger ships. Onward into virgin clouds and an almost certain mutiny. Victoria wondered if Lieutenant Fawkes would slit her throat himself or give the task to someone closer to her.

There was a hiss and an explosion of steam in the distance. Victoria’s remaining eye dilated and staved off the pain as the air whale breached the surface of the cumulous cloudbank before flopping back below it. Quickly, she ripped the scope out from under his coat and put it up to her eye. The brass fittings clicker-clacked lenses into place and soon Victoria had a visual of poetic motion. It was not of the humpback airwhale but what was creating the wake that the animal played in.

The cargo skyship slothfully plodded its way through the air, emerging from the surrounding clouds like a fat cow filled with money. Then the second ship came into focus…. And then another. And another. Supply ships ferrying goods for the empire’s war effort. Supply ships without a destroyer escort to be seen. The Lieutenant’s knife would have to wait a bit longer.

Victoria breathed a heavy sigh and felt the burning fade with the cool wind on her face. But as she yelled orders down to the decks below, and the ship sprang into the chaos of battle stations, Victoria swore that she felt something under her eye-patch wink.

Copyright JJ Kahrs, 2007

Inquisitor de Costa stomped bits of mud and heretic off his boot and walked into the tavern. The rain had not done much to improve a disposition already put foul by the uncooperative nature of the last three establishments he had visited. For this one’s sake, the local color had best be a shade of helpful blue. The alternative was a palette of excommunication purple with highlights of burned at the stake. Inquisitor de Costa’s job gave him an ever increasing appreciation for painting.

The inn he found himself in was poorly lit and filled with a smattered selection of Milan’s lower class, save for one. De Costa’s boots reverberated off the grit sanded floorboards as he hobbled towards an unoccupied table. The brass fittings of his clockwork leg rattled with every conspicuously heavy step made. The flesh and bruised stump he called a thigh ached for relief. Travel had been taxing, but God’s Work demanded fortitude of body and spirit.

With a baritone thud, the Inquisitor’s bulk settled into a wooden chair. His claw of a hand slapped a rosary wrapped sword down on the table in front of him.

“Wine,” he growled.

Behind him, he could hear the nervous shuffle of the owner’s wife seeing to his demands. As she set down the bottle and grubby cup in front of him, de Costa pulled her closer. He whispered words to her. Words like “thinking machine” and “heresy”. Then he whispered a name. She tried to pull away and her mouth tightened in the devil’s defiance. Her eyes saw the righteousness of his cause, glanced toward the table near the door, and the occupant sitting at it.

With a fluid motion, the Inquisitor shoved the woman to the ground and twisted as the thrown dagger passed through the space they had occupied. The betrayed man in the corner swore blasphemies at his failed aim and lurched towards the door. De Costa slapped at a lever at his thigh. Springs which had patiently held their contained energy in check, shouted life into the gears and wires connected to them. Together they gave the Inquisitor godspeed across the distance. The tip of his rapier plunged into his target’s chest and pinned them to the wall like a still wriggling insect.

The would be assassin squirmed silently and bled as de Costa’s grip closed around his neck. It felt wrong. He wore some type of bulky and hard collar around his throat, hidden by the folds of cloak and coat. The assassin’s mouth opened wide as the artificer voice box dispelled the mystery with a shrieking whistle that forced the Inquisitor to clasp his hands over his ears in pain.

De Costa’s vision started to blur at the unholy tone. He drew a dagger, judged the distance below the collar, and hoped his memory of “A Comprehensive Codex of Anatomies” held true as he plunged the blade neck-ward. The ungodly sound transformed into a hoarse wheeze through the new breathing hole the Inquisitor had fashioned.

What moment of satisfaction the man of God may have indulged in was slowly crushed over the rumble and shudder that shook the boards holding the tavern together. Whispers of revelation in de Costa’s mind broached the idea that the shrieking was not a mode of attack. The tavern door and its surrounding woodwork disintegrated into a shower of splinters and wreckage as the assassin’s accomplice lumbered out of the pouring rain and into candlelight’s glow.

The brass golem was anathema to the Church’s dogma. “Only God may create a mind,” was the Papal decree. Despite this, heretics still tried to create mechanisms that produced thought. Spring, slot, and cog that gave birth to a homoculus of will. The more malicious of these blasphemies were placed inside war-clocks and used to sew fear and lay siege. This one seemed intent on only destroying this tavern in general, and Inquisitor de Costa in particular.

The war-clock ticked and tocked as its mallet-like arm was winched back up by springs and counter-weights. It’s finely ground optics clicked through various sizes of lenses before settling on the one that gave it a clear picture of his target. De Costa heard the release lever pop free and rolled backwards into a lump of dark swaddling fabrics. His ears rang as the war-clock hammered the floor where he had been. It left a crater of crushed wood and kicked up a small cloud of dirt and grit into the air.

As the siege limb was ratcheted back into place, de Costa squinted through the fallout at the crime against God. His eye twitched and focused on a singular point. He whispered a prayer filled with more rote than pathos before slapping several levers on his person. He started to count.

Potential energies became kinetic and launched the Inquisitor at the war-clock. As the bulk of his body hit the abomination’s barrel chest, his legs locked around it like whore that had been paid in advance. The wrappings around his left arm tore away, exposing the brass and ivory of his arm as he raised it up into air. The artificial arm punched into the neck of the war-clock and met with a sudden stop against the hardened shell.

“Three”, said de Costa.

The hiss of metal on metal followed a thunder crack as the foot long blade extended from de Costa’s arm into the war-clock. The tip of it poked through the monster’s back and dripped with a foul ichor and alchemy as the dissonant chorus of severed cables stuttered somewhere deep inside of it.

Inquisitor de Costa pulled his fist out and dismounted the war-clock. It stayed frozen where it stood, as if imitating the other tavern patrons who were still unsure of what had just unfolded before him. De Costa ignored them, and hobbled towards the assassin who was still pinned to the wall. He twisted the rapier’s blade and the bug squirmed.

“Now, you will speak to me of your friends,” said de Costa, and found himself unbothered that the man was mute.

Copyright 2007, JJ Kahrs.

“You idiots!” screamed the head of Kim Jong -Il. “Why did you bring her here?”

The vikings looked at each other in confusion and fear before looking back at their bespecled leader. None of them wanted to admit to anything at this point for a variety of reasons. For some, it was because the leader of their Glorious Revolution was a ghoulish head floating in a tank of some unholy liquid. If anything, the Elvis sunglasses and wig that it wore only made him more disturbing to gaze at. For most though, it was what the floating head tank was attached to. A total of six spidery metal legs extended from the head and each had various jagged and sharp bits on it just in case onlookers didn’t get the point the first time.

Dakota found both the head and the legs horrid and would have said so if she wasn’t tied to a chair and gagged with pages from the writings of Adam Smith. To her credit, she tried to get her point across with panicked eyes and a moderate amount of whimpering.

The synthesized speech box at the bottom of the tank squawked in annoyance, “Well, I’m waiting…” One of the vikings cleared his throat to speak. Survival instincts kicked in on the others who started backing away from him.

“Comrade Jong-Il, we thought that if we captured the girl, then the capitalist pig dog agent would attempt to rescue her. Then we could trap the capitalist pig dog and continue our Glorious Revolution,” said the viking.

The head of Kim Jong-Il tapped one of its spidery death-legs absently as it pondered the viking’s words. The idea was creative. It had merit and potential. It had everything except one very important detail.

“That was not an idea of mine,” said the Glorious Leader and put several of his legs through several of the industrious viking’s vital organs. The viking died messily and then proceeded to bleed on the floor.

The head turned its attention to Dakota and made a chilling attempt at a friendly smile. “You see, to ignore the state is to put your needs above that of society’s. This is the same decadent ideals that your oppressive empire functions under,” he said, “There is hope for you though. You simply need to have the truth explained to you,” The vikings next to Dakota placed clamps on her head that forced her eyelids wide open and unable to even blink. “Lights!” shrieked the head and the room went dark.

A giant screen flickered to life and the beginning credits of a film scrolled past. A film written, directed by, and starring Kim Jong-Il. The faux-curtains parted to reveal Humphrey Bogart and Jane Mansfield looking unusually uncomfortable on camera. Dakota guessed it was the armed men holding guns and que-cards that unsettled them. Next to them was Kim Jong-Il, who managed to look drenched in flop-sweat despite being a head floating in a tank “I thought I did well in this,” said the head next to Dakota as it munched on some popcorn, “but Bogy overacted everything,”

Dakota screamed.

Copyright 2007, JJ Kahrs.

Dakota found the past itchier than she would have liked. The dress and bonnet they’d acquired was wool woven for the express purpose of making someone pine for cotton fabrics. She erupted in a full body scratch fit and let her eyes roll back into her skull as the wave of bliss poured down her spine. This moment of joy was quickly soured by the stench of Boston harbor that invaded her sinuses once more. It was somewhat comforting to know that some things past or present never change. She sighed, and tried not to be bored.

Agent Travis had left her outside of a pub while he went inside to try and get information on something. He wouldn’t say what the information was or why she had to wait outside. “It happened 200 years ago. How secret could it be?” she had asked. Her reply was a door slammed in her face and 30 minutes of standing around trying not to be conspicuous. Trying was the operative word. Everyone that passed by her stared at her like they knew she didn’t belong here. Like a scarlet letter had been sewn poorly on her stolen whore-dress. She wasn’t sure what the letter would be but whatever it was, it must be large and done in bright colors. Dakota shrank away from the city streets for the comfort of alley shadows where she ran headlong into another bright color.

“Oy, what’s this then?” said the redcoat soldier to the two friends he had with him. They all three smiled at her with malnourished libidos. The hair on Dakota’s neck stood at attention and started looking at the want ads for new employment.

Now normally there would be a bargaining period where the would be victim would try and convince their attackers that it was not in everyone’s best interests to resort to violence and that it would be so much better if everyone just left well enough alone. The attackers would consider this advice and then spend the rest of their time deciding on the options of robbery, rape, or murder. Dakota wasn’t much of a traditionalist and kicked the first soldier between the legs so hard it made the brickwork wince.

By the time the others started to chase her, Dakota had already managed over a wooden fence; A feat that was executed faster than an Olympian with the added difficulty of a dress. For two blocks she ran on pure reflex and adrenaline before her brain came off its coffee break and started nit-picking what reflex and adrenaline had done.

“Wouldn’t it have been better to run into the pub where Agent Travis is?” asked Brain.

Reflex coughed nervously while Adrenaline made a show of looking anywhere but at Brain.

“Well where are we now?” asked Brain.

“Um… someplace British soldiers aren’t?” said Reflex.

Brain closed its eyes and rubbed its temples. “Ok. Fine. Just let me start driving again,” said Brain and steered Dakota into the next available alley.

Dakota hid behind some boxes and peered out of the gap between buildings. Her ears could hear horses and people but nothing that sounded like soldiers or running. She was safe. Adrenaline decided it had enough and fatigue flooded her arteries. She had started to relax and piece together what she should do next when the large calloused hand went over her mouth and thick arms pythoned around the rest of her. The black of passing out closed around her, and it smelled like herring and Marxism.

Copyright 2007, JJ Kahrs

Captain Rosenbaum had grown to resent his plant. Despite repeated attempts on its life, it remained green and vibrant out of what could only be hate and spite. Each morning he would wake up, stumble out of his bunk, and swear violently at whatever gods he could think of of until the coffee perked. And each morning despite the constant and attentive neglect, lack of water, and persistent darkness the small artichoke plant remained among the living. Rosenbaum was considering taking away its soil next.

The good Captain was on day 387 of his tour on this forsaken u-boat and quite honestly he was finding it hard to give a crap about his job. Between the stench of the crew, the bad hours, and the executive officer’s Jack Benny fetish, it had worn away any sense of duty Rosenbaum might have once had. Now he spent his days prowling the Atlantic ocean trying to find an Allied ship with the balls to put him out of his misery. Other u-boat crews had life expectancies measured in weeks, but he was cursed with the luck of the damned. He didn’t care. Soon his tour will be over and he would be free of this existence and the damnable plant.

“Herr Captain?” asked the sailor who had knocked and then entered his commanding officer’s quarters. He was young but had learned that it was pointless to wait for permission that never was going to come. A bright lad, it had only taken him 3 days before he started coming armed with a shield of some type. Rosenbaum made a slurred attempt at the German language before throwing anything bottle-shaped in the poor sailor’s direction. After 15 minuies, the Captain gave up his attempts to repel the intruder and surrendered.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Breakfast, sir” said the sailor and set the tray down on the table before beating a hasty retreat. Rosenbaum groaned, scratched various bits of himself, and parked his carcass in front of this morning delivery. He was having brown to eat again. The drink was brown. The entree was brown with a somewhat glazey looking brown sauce over it. It wasn’t identifiable as anything in particular anymore. It simply tasted brown.

The food wasn’t the only brown that arrived this morning. Sitting next to the tray was a manilla folder left by the sailor. It was the same creased and abused folder that had been used to hold all official communications from the radio operator since they put to sea. He poked at it with his fork until it surrendered the lone piece of paper inside of it. A paper whose sole purpose in this world was to inform him that due to a shortage of experienced u-boat captains, his tour had been extended for another six months.

Rosenbaum pulled out his service revolver and shot his plant.

Copyright 2007, JJ Kahrs

Upon putting her foot down, Dakota learned one of the fundamental differences between the past and the future. In the past, there are a lot more horses and fewer people cleaning up after them. A chant of obscenities sounded the lament for her poor mary janes.

“Quiet,” said Travis and went back to his vigilant monitoring of the whorehouse. When Dakota had asked him why they had to wait out here by the livestock instead of going inside, he had insisted it involved preserving history. Two more hours of her nagging finally managed to get more details out of the government employee. One of the founding fathers was inside and he had to leave before they could go in. Agent Travis flat out refused to reveal which one but whomever it was, she was impressed with their stamina.

Dakota fidgeted with bored energy. “So why are we here?” she asked.

“We need to keep a low-impact profile while we’re here and now. In order to do that we must procure clothing for you that’s local to this space-time region,” rattled off Agent Travis in his best agency monotone.

“So not so much with the synthetic fibers and modern look”, said Dakota.

“Actually, it’s the pants. Women aren’t of the liberated and voting type these days,” said Travis.

“Neither are the men,” snapped Dakota. Agent Travis gave her a look that implied that he did not hold an appreciation for a quick wit nor people smarter than himself. Dakota believed it was a look he had to use a lot.

“It’s clear. Let’s move,” said Travis and moved from his crouch towards the back door of the full-service establishment. Dakota followed and prayed the horses didn’t come out back.

“My real question was why are we chasing vikings into colonial Boston?” she asked.

“Communism,” said Travis as he edged up to the door. “Militant marxists who decided the cold war was better won through retroactive editing of their enemy’s timeline.”

“But vikings?” said Dakota and cocked her head to the side in puzzlement.

Agent Travis pulled our a pair of flintlock pistols from his belt and gave a glance back at Dakota. “Why do you think they call him, Erik the Red?” he said. And with that, he kicked down the wooden door and barreled into a parlor full of stunned men and women.

“Everyone take your clothes off!” yelled Travis.

“For your country,” he added.

Copyright 2007, JJ Kahrs

Dakota lay in a patch of idyllic green pasture and showed her appreciation of it by throwing up on it. She would have certainly enjoyed the pollution-free air, bright sky, and rural hush but right now she would have settled for normal. Normal being free of vertigo and not losing her cafeteria lunch in front of the Smelly Cowboy Jerk. Except that he wasn’t a smelly cowboy nor a secret service agent anymore. Standing in front of her was the same man who threw her over his shoulder but dressed like he belonged on the label of a bottle of Sam Adams beer.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

“No, really?,” coughed Dakota. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and looked up at him. Instead of angry or annoyed, Agent Cowboy Brewer looked puzzled. She could almost see the clockwork on the other side of his furrowed brow until it slowly and gradually began to come to a realization.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said again.

“Yes. I got that. Thank you,” said Dakota. Then very slowly and very carefully realized that she was no longer inside the White House. “Where am I?” she asked.

“About 3 miles outside of the city of Boston”

“And how did I get here?”

“You followed me through a time portal to 1774 while I was attempting to apprehend a suspect.”

“A time portal.”

“Right.”

“Can I freak now now?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Ok,” said Dakota and took another moment to let her mind stop begging to be submerged in large amounts of anti-psychotics. “So who the hell are you?”

“Special Agent Travis, U.S. Temporal Enforcement Agency,” said Travis. “And I’m afraid I’m going to have to place you under arrest,” he continued with a mirthless expression.

“What?!” yelled Dakota.

Agent Travis reached down and clamped Dakota’s arm in a claw-like grip only mastered by police and mothers of four. She protested this treatment with a rational argument that consisted mostly of biting. Travis’s counter-point was to draw a flintlock pistol and point it at her.

“Unauthorized time-travel is a serious crime, miss. You can’t just joy ride through the fabric of space-time,” said Travis.

“You kidnapped me!”

“I did nothing of the sort. I was in pursuit of suspects and-”

“And something got in your way…”

“-and I threw it over my shoulder and continued… to…”, slurred Travis as his brain caught up with his mouth. Mental breaks engaged leaving a trail of skidmarks and the faint smell of burning and panic in the air.

“Oh,” he said.

“Oh,” she said.

The resulting silence lingered in the air like the moment on a first date when you find out that the other person used to be in prison. Travis lowered his pistol. Dakota reclaimed her arm despite it being somewhat more bruised than she usually liked it.

“So now what?” asked Dakota.

Travis squared his shoulders, holstered his pistol, and brought his very small worldview into something approaching a soft focus.

“Now we find a whore house and then save America,” he said.

Copyright 2007, JJ Kahrs

Dakota choked on the stench of horse, whiskey, and man-sweat that her face was buried in. For a moment her eyes twitched as the vaguely cowboy-ish form standing bravely in front of her became a vaguely secret service-ish form standing bravely in front of her. Dressed in a black suit and regulation uninteresting tie, he stood in front of the portal with a pistol in one hand and a vintage sword in the other. The agent lifted the cutlass in his hand and parried the blow of the homicidal norseman. Dakota was speechless.

Whatever mood of romantic adventure that might have sprung from this was murdered in its crib. The square jawed man in the suit, apparently ill-informed of the women’s movement, grabbed Dakota and hefted her over his shoulder. Like a very angry sack of potatoes, she pounded her fists into the slab of testosterone holding her. She cussed. She swore. She tried to figure out what was going on.

“Erik the Red…”

“Die Yankee dog!”

“…you are under arrest…”

“I will feast on the capitalist whore that whelped you!”

“…for crimes against history”

The conversation continued with the sounds of metal clashing acting as punctuation. Dakota couldn’t see a thing thanks to the smelly cowboy pirate agent’s vice-like hold of her midsection. She could however watch as the glowing portal that she’d try to flee through blinked out of existence with a “FWIP” sound. Seconds later another “FWIP” came from somewhere behind her. She craned her neck around trying to see what was going on but all she could make out was more weird lights and sense that she was running. Or rather, that the brute carrying her was running.

“Make for the exit, Comrades!” yelled a Viking.

“You won’t get away,” said Agent Chauvinist Cowboy Pirate.

“No, let them get away!” yelled Dakota, “Vikings bad! Let them get far far awa-”

There was another “FWIP” sound, a flash of light, and suddenly Dakota’s world got very, very green.

Copyright 2006, JJ Kahrs