Second Thoughts

To read part two.

Now was the time for fists. The interior room of the dusty book depository imploded as Marilyn Monroe ripped through the locked steel doors; the chain and padlock security might as well been made of dental floss when matched against Marilyn Monroe's brute strength.

“Quickly! To the sixth floor, eastern side!” Marilyn roared and charged up the stairs. I followed behind calibrating my chronometer to allow for a proper transition from the established timeline into an alternate temporal reality. Assuming we get to Oswald in time. Only four minutes remained. This was going to be close.

Missions of this magnitude always are.

As I dashed up the stairwell I could hear the roar of the crowd outside. The frenzy of cheers confirmed my worst fear: the Presidential limo was on its way toward the corner of Houston and Elm street. My thighs burned as we made it to the sixth floor. Images of the First Lady scrambling backwards, grabbing parts of her husband's head rushed through my mind. No.

Those were ghost images. The temporal reality was resisting change. History actually prefers to repeat itself.

I concentrated on the stairwell and did a quick scan with my chronometer. A heat signature registered behind the wall. “Marilyn! Manuever Alpha, Gamma, Echo!”

Marilyn rolled into a compact tumble and using his immense body weight slammed a gaping hole straight through the warehouse wall. As the dust and plaster settled, I saw a body firmly beneath the gorilla’s massive feet. It was would-be assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

And he was dead!

“Marilyn, you killed him! That wasn’t part of the plan.” Marilyn howled in defiance. I looked closer. His throat was slashed. It was a fresh kill. This mission was going to be tougher than I had anticipated. “Marlyn! Prepare for incoming!”

Perhaps mankind has more instinct than I sometimes give credit. Marilyn and I immediately assumed combat stances back to back as we were assaulted by a trio of robot-ninjas!

“Handler…this…timeline…will…not…be…saved!”

This spinning android assassin thrust its katana arms in my direction as I deftly deflected the blades with a found biology textbook. In my periphery, a robot ninja with a high powered rifle took aim out the window and waited for the perfect angle for a precision kill.

You see. Changing timelines is a dangerous business. Not only does time itself try to fight you, but there are many players in the temporal game with invested interest in how mankind's future turns out. The Kinachi Robot Ninja Clan is but one of humanity's persistent enemies. For Empress Kinachi to dispatch four assassins was as much an honor as it was a royal pain in my ass.

I needed more than a text book for defense. The robot ninja caught me in the jaw with an aluminum roundhouse kick. I rolled backwards with the kick's momentum into a squatting position and tossed a magnaton marble. Even the robot's hyper processed reactivity matrix couldn’t adjust fast enough to save it from the marble's detonation. The electric explosion filled a precise radius of one foot and caught the ninjabot square in its chest leaving a gaping hole of sizzling circuitry. The ninja robot collapsed inward. My jaw would certainly have a bruise in the morning.

The iconic image of JFK Jr. saluting his father's casket flooded my senses. I felt dizzy. Ghost images. I took a deep breath and staggered to my feet. I had to focus on the mission.

“Marilyn, you ok?” I glanced over to see Marilyn. His white satin gown was shredded to ribbons. He gripped the crackling, inert forms of two ninja robots in its beefy hands and smashed their heads together like beer cans. Marilyn roared in triumph.

“Good boy!”

I dashed toward the final assassin who held the rifle. The din of the crowd below the depository was deafening. John Fitzgerald Kennedy's motorcade was in position. The alarm on my chronometer beeped. It was 12:30!

“You…are…too…late…Handler!” The emotionless robot ninja seemed to mock me.

Indeed. I was too late.

With an expansive forty feet between myself and the final assassin, I watched helplessly as the assassin's trigger finger flexed. A sudden green flash filled the sixth floor room. The assault rifle fired one shot. The delicate tinkle-bell of the shell casing hitting the plywood floor seemed much louder than the explosive bang of the firearm.

I had failed my mission.

To be continued...