WTAF
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
"WHAT. THE. FUCK!" said Polina.
"FUCK!" said Charlie, pointing the gun Smith had given her, at the space Smith had just vacated.
"Why do you ladies have to swear so much?" said Elmer.
"YOU'D FUCKING SWEAR IF YOU HAD BEEN THROUGH WHAT WE HAD BEEN THROUGH!" said Polina and Charlie, in almost perfect unison.
"I have."
"Have you even, THE SLIGHTEST FUCKING IDEA, of how different 2016 is from 1940? He's closer to where we were than we are to you. Why didn't the bastard offer to take us back?" said Polina.
"Your job here is maybe too important I guess. He didn't offer to take me back to Mildred and Viola. He threaten to kill me. What's the Trinity Test? What's Chik-sa-loob?"
"Chicxulub. It was the cometary impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. It's in Mexico." answered Polina, glossing over the Trinity test (she wasn't sure what that was) "Can't remember where. Dad will tell you more where we meet him. Who is this guy Smith anyway?"
"He's built like a brick shit'ouse, I'll give 'im that" said Charlie "Not seen anyone, anything like that in reality outside of a superhero movie. And I've seen some tough guys. Who is he?"
"You don't have him in your world?"
"If we do, he looks like Woody Allen and lives with his mum in North Wales".
"He's a mobster. Criminal kingpin. Arms dealer, warmonger – sold arms to the Chinese army – I was posing as a representative of him. I'd heard he was going to steal the entire treasury of the Kuomintang government from Nanking. Six thousand tons of gold! He has links with all the criminal gangs in the US, Capone operation especially. Anyone who gets out in his way he brutally eliminates!"
"But he didn't threaten us. Or kill you."
"You obviously pose no threat to him. You pose more of threat to the time-travellers in Germany and Japan."
"It just gets worse and worse. What were the guys names again? Schussler. Kawa-something?" said Charlie.
"Scherssler and Kawaguchi – I was writing stuff down. Shame we couldn't record it! Dad'll never believe us, not even with all that stuff" said Polina, gesturing at Smith's gifts.
"If the time travellers are at work the Third Reich and Japan, why have haven't they got jets, V2s, nukes already?"
"Maybe they have." said Polina.
Five hundred miles off the coast of Morocco, off the Canary Islands, the SS Victor Schoelcher, carrying 180 tons of Belgian and 50 tons of Polish gold bullion, was torpedoed and sunk en route to Dakar. The six ships escorted by the Marine National battleship Jean Bart, were carrying $1.3 billion worth of gold at the 1940 price of $35 dollars an ounce. This convoy was probably the most secret in history. As the light cruiser Primauguet picked the survivors out the sea, the captain of the Jean Bart wondered why his ship was not the primary target.
Charlie flew Eddie Rickenbacker,to La Guardia in the Tigercat, now unarmed and painted red-and-white, like a civilian water bomber. Tony flew the two-seat P-51D, also unmarked. It helped that Rickenbacker was one of the financiers of McCarthy's speed record attempt. The aircraft had been given a civilian serials by the FAA.
The Tigercat had the serial NX19730, and was registered as the 'McCarthy M2 Tigershark'.
McCarthy was born in 1973. A creepy coincidence, or deliberate?
The 'McCarthy M1 Mustang' was registered as NX19740.
Charlie and Polina may have rescued Elmer from a beating, from homelessness, but not from isolation, not from loneliness. He still felt apart from this world. His begging on the streets of New York, the seething metropolis, was a reaction against the things that had been stolen from him.
This McCarthy guy still had his daughter, his money, his aeroplanes, he wanted for nothing.
Is this that the fabled McCarthy? thought Holtzmann. He don't look like much. You can tell him and Charlie were a thing, though.
"So who is this chap you brought with you?"
"This is Elmer Holtzmann, he's a journalist"
"Oh. Great." said Alex, flatly. "Where did you drag him up from?"
"We found him in Times Square, me and Polina, in an alley. Having the shit kicked out him" said Charlie.
Somebody who hate journalists even more than me.
"And he claims to be one of us?" asked Alex.
"Not exactly" said Elmer.
"So are we telling him everything?"
"I think we already have. We've told just about everyone else, after all. We didn't really have much choice when this other guy turned up" said Charlie.. "He knew almost as much about us, as we did. More in fact."
"This Smith guy"
"This 'James Smith' guy. You could have chosen a more exotic name, like Doctor John Smith"
"Hahaha. Yeah. Anyway. He gave us these." She opened
"And these are?"
"Some kind of nanotechnological medical treatment that can do everything short of reanimating the dead."
"As opposed to a dozen vials of WKD blue."
"And this." Charlie produced the gun. "Just about the only thing we are not short of"
"Shit."
"9mm caseless ammo. Thirty or sixty round magazine. Laser pointer."
"Not from this time. Obviously. Like no other gun that was in the pipeline either. I take it you haven't used it?"
"Well, Joe Pesci or Bobbie de Niro haven't been round to whack us for pepper-spraying their wiseguys, so no."
"These people who duffed up this Altman geezer…."
"Holtzmann"
"They were mafia? Aw Fuck"
"They had Italian accents anyway. You still got the paranoia gun?"
"Uh huh. Seven .38 Glaser Safety slugs. Whatsa matta you hey? Gotta no respect? You keep that thing, I don't trust anything I ain't seen before." said McCarthy.
"Is this private conversation, or can anyone join in"
"As you can gather, Mr Holtzmann, I'm not overly keen on journalists…"
"I ain't a journalist. I'm a bum" he said.
"I'm warming to you already, tell us your story."
"I was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1903."
"Yeah, what date?"
"September Eleventh" said Holtzmann.
"Yeah, same here. That's my birthday now. 'Cept I was actually born in 1973. Do carry on…"
"I graduated high school, I went to Columbia University, got a job at the New York Globe, then I discovered this James Smith guy. Mobster, bootlegger, high class pimp, arms dealer, warmonger"
"Sounds like just the guy the US needs" said Alex.
"This ain't no laughing matter"
"Who's joking? I'm serious."
"This guy was like mercury, you couldn't touch him for nothing. They put me the foreign desk after I dug a bit too deep. Turns out he's got his claws in everywhere. One night I go bed in Nanjing, next morning I wake up back in New York City in the most lavish suite I ever seen. I can't pay for it. My money's worthless. NYPD arrest me. The place where I work is some kinda gentleman's club. My apartment was owned by somebody else. My wife and baby daughter I search all over for. No dice. My ma and pa? Nothing. This ain't my 1937, there ain't nothing here for me."
"Well, Mr Holtzmann, it seems like you are stuck here, whether you like it not. Just out of curiosity, Mr Holtzmann, who was the Chancellor of Germany in your 1937?"
"Adolf Hitler"
"And leader of Italy?"
"Benito Mussolini"
"And the President of the USA?"
"Franklin D. Roosevelt"
"And is Mr Roosevelt disabled?
"No?"
"You've seen him walk unaided?" asked Alex.
"With my own eyes, yes, at the 1936 Democrat National Convention."
"How odd. In our universe he was wheelchair bound the whole time"
"Who was President after 1940?" asked Holtzmann.
"Roosevelt."
"He stood again? For a third term?" said Holtzmann, surprised.
"And won a fourth in 1944. USA was at war by then, of course, had been for three years"
"Who with?"
"Japan, Nazi Germany and Italy. In your universe someone cured all his ailments. In this one someone exacerbated them so badly he died." answered Alexander.
"Being shot at don't help. That guy Zangara paralysed him. Wait a minute, did you say Japan? Were they still fighting the USSR?"
"Apart from the one battle between the Japs and the Russkis in 1939, they didn't fight at all until 1945. They signed a peace treaty and stuck to it."
"They were locked in war over the borders with Mongolia and Manchuria in my 1937. They couldn't fight the Soviets and Americans together. Why did the US got to war with Japan, then?"
"The Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor and sank most of the US Pacific Fleet"
"That's ridiculous! The USN woulda made mincemeat of them."
"Hmmm, yeah" said McCarthy, dismissively.
"I've seen the Japs up close – good at fighting other Orientals, but hopeless as-all-get-out versus the White man"
"They invaded the Phillipines,Vietn- French Indochina, Malaya, Singapore and Indon – the Dutch East Indies and Burma, all while the USN was putting the fires out. Does the name Winston S Churchill mean anything to you?"
"He's on James Smith's payroll"
"Sounds good to me. Did this 'James Smith' sell arms to any of the fascists, the Axis?"
"Not that I know of, virtually anyone else though. Who is President of the USA in 2015, if you don't mind my asking?"
"I have a picture of him here. Notice anything – unusual?"
"He's a goddamn N-Negro!"
"Don't look so surprised, it was going to happen eventually."
"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDD...but you're not, are you?" said Holtzmann, looking at McCarthy's unsmiling face "So the Negro race has pulled itself up enough to have a black candidate for President"
"More likely the so-called white race has pulled itself enough to stop being instinctive racists and vote for him. You didn't ask his name for instance" said Alex.
"What is it?"
"Barack Hussein Obama"
"He's an African? A Muslim?"
"Sounds like you will fit in fine with the 2016 GOP. He's a Democrat." said Alex, sourly.
"Godamnit, how? Your America's gone crazy. I'm a registered Democrat. I was a registered Democrat."
"You heard of a small time B-movie actor called Ronald Reagan?"
"I sat in a movie theater to keep out of the cold once last winter. He was lousy. Wooden. What of him?"
"He's your fortieth President in my world."
"Oh, you are just playing with me now! So when did this God-forsaken war you English are fighting actually end?"
"The British Empire is fighting it. For now at least. To answer your question. In 1945, when the Red Army tanks rolled into a shattered Berlin, and when the last two Japanese cities were burnt to the ground."
"The Red Army? The Soviets? But they have signed a tre-"
"When have the Nazis ever stuck to a treaty? It's World War Two – no-one ever said it had to make any sense. Prepare for the unexpected and expect to be unprepared. Though not so much of the latter, if I've got anything to do with it!"
Interlude in Asia
]The Kushanshahanshah looked at the painting, and said, in a received pronunciation accent "What in the blue blazes is it?"
Alikasundara IX Kushana Vasudeva Sōtēr, forty-eight-year-old product of Eton and Sandhurst, owner of two Derby winners, nominal ruler of 37 million people in the Indus and Oxus valleys, asked the actual seat of power, Sir George Cunningham, the viceregal governor.
"Well, apart from an aeroplane of some description, I have no idea. Where did you find it?"
"The satrap of Gandara found it in Government House, covered in dust" said the King of Kings.
"And McGregor brought it to you?" asked Sir George. The tradition was that half the regional governors (satraps) would be Englishmen, and half would be Kushans. Conveniently there were eighteen satrapi.
"Well, I am not an art expert, but it is not, in my opinion, but its not by a Eastern artist."
"If Alma-Tadema painted aeroplanes of future, it might look like this." said Eskander.
The Dharmarakṣita (supreme religious authority in the Kushan Protectorate, and advisor to Eskander) had called the picture 'Chariot of the Maitreya', but it was known by the only recognisable writing on the work of art. The digits 498.
It was not wise to question the mystical beliefs of the Kushanshahanshah, a devout Buddhist. Woe betide those who did not bow to the statue of Amitābha Buddha at the entrance to his palace in Takshashila (Lutyens had purpose-built New Delhi to outshine Takshashila). He would depart for his pilgrimage to the great shrine at Bāmiyān, scene of a great victory over the Kidarite Huns, in the next week.
His first act on ascending the throne in 1935 was to order the people of the town of Kuwatah to flee. This enraged the British colonial authorities who tried and failed to prevent 20,000 people from leaving. Weeks later Kuwatah was leveled by an earthquake that killed six thousand that had not heeded his call.
He thus earned the honorific Sōtēr ('saviour')
When you shook the hand of the Kushanshahanshah, you shook the hand of man who shook the hand of the man […] who shook the hand of Alexander the Great, Ashoka and Siddhārtha Gautama
The aircraft in the painting appeared to have the roundel of Kushan Imperial Air Force on it, and the terrain it was flying over appeared to from the Northern Frontier region.
However the KIAF only had Fiat CR-32, Hawker Hind and Westland Wapiti biplanes in its inventory. The order (placed by Alikasundara personally, using his own money) for eighteen Hawker Hurricanes monoplanes had been cancelled on the outbreak of the European war.
This aircraft did not even have a propeller. What on earth could it be?
Alikasundara had met Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Olympics, and had been utterly disgusted by the man, who had claimed to be a representative of the Aryan race. The ]Greco-Buddhist Indo-Europeans of Kushan had fought off all their would-be conquerors (the Mongols, the Huns, the Mughal emperors, and the Persians many times) and welcomed Zoroastrians and even Ismaili Muslims into their midst, until meeting their match with the British Empire. Alikasundara's predecessors had ruled Kushan since 180 BC, some 1300 years BEFORE the Prussians even existed! The Germans were underfed Teuton-Slavs, that the Bactrian regiments (as the Kushan troops were called, in service with the British Army) had defeated in East Africa and when they were deployed, finally, in Flanders in 1918.
The protection of British had been a blessing in disguise – to think they might have been colonised by the Russians, the way their Turkic Muslim brothers the Tajiks had!
The Army of the Indus had made the British, and their Sikh allies pay for their submission, in blood.
It was only the naval blockade and Siege of Barbarikon that had forced the Kushans capitulation.
It was that moment that Charlie chose the moment to reveal all she knew.
"The German guy Smith told us about. Scherssler is his name. We have something in common with him"
"Ugh. What?"
"He's a time traveler, too" said Charlie
<beat>
"I think that's the first time I've shut you up in a long time" continued Charlie.
"YOU. HAVE. GOT. TO. BE. JOKING"
"That James Smith guy told me, Elmer and Polina just before he disappeared"
"If anyone other than you, you and Polina, had tried this shit on with me, I'd say they were blowing smoke up my arse"
"That's what he told us. There's two of them, apparently."
"Oh, fuck"
"The other one is Japanese – called Kawagoochey, we think. Something like that. At least this is Smith's version of events." said Charlie.
"So why haven't the Nazis got jets, missiles, diesel-electric subs, Panther tanks, already?"
"That's what we thought. Maybe he's met the same level of resistance you did. But according to this Smith guy, he's made Hitler immortal. "
"NO ONE IS FUCKING IMMORTAL – wait a minute! Maybe that's why Hitler survived so many assassination attempts"
"Why didn't the Eyeties get a time traveler of their own?" asked Alex.
"Maybe they are gonna sit this one out" said Charlie.
"Benito is so far up Hitler's arse he needs a torch. I can't see them staying out of it for long" said Alex "any more bad news you've been keeping from me? Why didn't Tony tell me about these Hyperians?"
Charlie bit her tongue, but decided to tell Alex, anyway.
"Smith, he gave you…"
"Gave ME what? I thought this was bad news"
"...a nuclear weapon. Two nuclear weapons. Though if you dropped them from that" she pointed at the Tigercat, "or the Tucano you'd incinerate yourself."
McCarthy was stunned into silence for a second time.
"Where? At Bentwaters, or Cthulhu Base?"
"Cthulhu Base – are we going to keep calling it that?" said Charlie…
"A NUCLEAR WEAPON!? What the bloody hell use is that?"
"Drop it on the Germans, and presumably they will surrender, like the Japanese."
"The Japanese were surrounded, blockaded, nearly all their cities burnt to the ground. WHY WOULD THE GERMANS SURRENDER WHEN THEY CONTROL EUROPE FROM THE PYRENEES TO THE VISTULA? Just 'cos arf-a-million Germans got incinerated in one go?"
"Good point." replied Charlie.
"Why would this Smith guy give me those nukes?" asked Alex.
"He didn't. These Hyperian aliens did."
"And these Hyperians are the one's Cloney Tony's posthumans are fighting?"
"Search me. You better ask him." said Charlie
"You need one nuke for a demonstration, and another to back up your threat. If you've only got one no will believe you until you've killed 100,000 people – and then if they still won't surrender? How big are they?"
"About the size of a drop tank, he said"
"The yield, woman! THE YIELD!"
"Oh, 200 kilotons"
"A small thermonuke then. Arf-a-million dead, like I said. I'll never use it. NEVER! Not unless the Germans drop one first – which is within the realm of possibility if the Krauts are getting help from fucking time travelers. In fact thats the only thing I'd consider dropping a nuke on."
"The Nazi nuclear weapons program?"
"A Nazi nuclear weapons program, if one exists. No-one would attempt to build another one, if those are the kind of industrial accidents you get"
"FUCK!" said Charlie, pointing the gun Smith had given her, at the space Smith had just vacated.
"Why do you ladies have to swear so much?" said Elmer.
"YOU'D FUCKING SWEAR IF YOU HAD BEEN THROUGH WHAT WE HAD BEEN THROUGH!" said Polina and Charlie, in almost perfect unison.
"I have."
"Have you even, THE SLIGHTEST FUCKING IDEA, of how different 2016 is from 1940? He's closer to where we were than we are to you. Why didn't the bastard offer to take us back?" said Polina.
"Your job here is maybe too important I guess. He didn't offer to take me back to Mildred and Viola. He threaten to kill me. What's the Trinity Test? What's Chik-sa-loob?"
"Chicxulub. It was the cometary impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. It's in Mexico." answered Polina, glossing over the Trinity test (she wasn't sure what that was) "Can't remember where. Dad will tell you more where we meet him. Who is this guy Smith anyway?"
"He's built like a brick shit'ouse, I'll give 'im that" said Charlie "Not seen anyone, anything like that in reality outside of a superhero movie. And I've seen some tough guys. Who is he?"
"You don't have him in your world?"
"If we do, he looks like Woody Allen and lives with his mum in North Wales".
"He's a mobster. Criminal kingpin. Arms dealer, warmonger – sold arms to the Chinese army – I was posing as a representative of him. I'd heard he was going to steal the entire treasury of the Kuomintang government from Nanking. Six thousand tons of gold! He has links with all the criminal gangs in the US, Capone operation especially. Anyone who gets out in his way he brutally eliminates!"
"But he didn't threaten us. Or kill you."
"You obviously pose no threat to him. You pose more of threat to the time-travellers in Germany and Japan."
"It just gets worse and worse. What were the guys names again? Schussler. Kawa-something?" said Charlie.
"Scherssler and Kawaguchi – I was writing stuff down. Shame we couldn't record it! Dad'll never believe us, not even with all that stuff" said Polina, gesturing at Smith's gifts.
"If the time travellers are at work the Third Reich and Japan, why have haven't they got jets, V2s, nukes already?"
"Maybe they have." said Polina.
Five hundred miles off the coast of Morocco, off the Canary Islands, the SS Victor Schoelcher, carrying 180 tons of Belgian and 50 tons of Polish gold bullion, was torpedoed and sunk en route to Dakar. The six ships escorted by the Marine National battleship Jean Bart, were carrying $1.3 billion worth of gold at the 1940 price of $35 dollars an ounce. This convoy was probably the most secret in history. As the light cruiser Primauguet picked the survivors out the sea, the captain of the Jean Bart wondered why his ship was not the primary target.
Charlie flew Eddie Rickenbacker,to La Guardia in the Tigercat, now unarmed and painted red-and-white, like a civilian water bomber. Tony flew the two-seat P-51D, also unmarked. It helped that Rickenbacker was one of the financiers of McCarthy's speed record attempt. The aircraft had been given a civilian serials by the FAA.
The Tigercat had the serial NX19730, and was registered as the 'McCarthy M2 Tigershark'.
McCarthy was born in 1973. A creepy coincidence, or deliberate?
The 'McCarthy M1 Mustang' was registered as NX19740.
Charlie and Polina may have rescued Elmer from a beating, from homelessness, but not from isolation, not from loneliness. He still felt apart from this world. His begging on the streets of New York, the seething metropolis, was a reaction against the things that had been stolen from him.
This McCarthy guy still had his daughter, his money, his aeroplanes, he wanted for nothing.
Is this that the fabled McCarthy? thought Holtzmann. He don't look like much. You can tell him and Charlie were a thing, though.
"So who is this chap you brought with you?"
"This is Elmer Holtzmann, he's a journalist"
"Oh. Great." said Alex, flatly. "Where did you drag him up from?"
"We found him in Times Square, me and Polina, in an alley. Having the shit kicked out him" said Charlie.
Somebody who hate journalists even more than me.
"And he claims to be one of us?" asked Alex.
"Not exactly" said Elmer.
"So are we telling him everything?"
"I think we already have. We've told just about everyone else, after all. We didn't really have much choice when this other guy turned up" said Charlie.. "He knew almost as much about us, as we did. More in fact."
"This Smith guy"
"This 'James Smith' guy. You could have chosen a more exotic name, like Doctor John Smith"
"Hahaha. Yeah. Anyway. He gave us these." She opened
"And these are?"
"Some kind of nanotechnological medical treatment that can do everything short of reanimating the dead."
"As opposed to a dozen vials of WKD blue."
"And this." Charlie produced the gun. "Just about the only thing we are not short of"
"Shit."
"9mm caseless ammo. Thirty or sixty round magazine. Laser pointer."
"Not from this time. Obviously. Like no other gun that was in the pipeline either. I take it you haven't used it?"
"Well, Joe Pesci or Bobbie de Niro haven't been round to whack us for pepper-spraying their wiseguys, so no."
"These people who duffed up this Altman geezer…."
"Holtzmann"
"They were mafia? Aw Fuck"
"They had Italian accents anyway. You still got the paranoia gun?"
"Uh huh. Seven .38 Glaser Safety slugs. Whatsa matta you hey? Gotta no respect? You keep that thing, I don't trust anything I ain't seen before." said McCarthy.
"Is this private conversation, or can anyone join in"
"As you can gather, Mr Holtzmann, I'm not overly keen on journalists…"
"I ain't a journalist. I'm a bum" he said.
"I'm warming to you already, tell us your story."
"I was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1903."
"Yeah, what date?"
"September Eleventh" said Holtzmann.
"Yeah, same here. That's my birthday now. 'Cept I was actually born in 1973. Do carry on…"
"I graduated high school, I went to Columbia University, got a job at the New York Globe, then I discovered this James Smith guy. Mobster, bootlegger, high class pimp, arms dealer, warmonger"
"Sounds like just the guy the US needs" said Alex.
"This ain't no laughing matter"
"Who's joking? I'm serious."
"This guy was like mercury, you couldn't touch him for nothing. They put me the foreign desk after I dug a bit too deep. Turns out he's got his claws in everywhere. One night I go bed in Nanjing, next morning I wake up back in New York City in the most lavish suite I ever seen. I can't pay for it. My money's worthless. NYPD arrest me. The place where I work is some kinda gentleman's club. My apartment was owned by somebody else. My wife and baby daughter I search all over for. No dice. My ma and pa? Nothing. This ain't my 1937, there ain't nothing here for me."
"Well, Mr Holtzmann, it seems like you are stuck here, whether you like it not. Just out of curiosity, Mr Holtzmann, who was the Chancellor of Germany in your 1937?"
"Adolf Hitler"
"And leader of Italy?"
"Benito Mussolini"
"And the President of the USA?"
"Franklin D. Roosevelt"
"And is Mr Roosevelt disabled?
"No?"
"You've seen him walk unaided?" asked Alex.
"With my own eyes, yes, at the 1936 Democrat National Convention."
"How odd. In our universe he was wheelchair bound the whole time"
"Who was President after 1940?" asked Holtzmann.
"Roosevelt."
"He stood again? For a third term?" said Holtzmann, surprised.
"And won a fourth in 1944. USA was at war by then, of course, had been for three years"
"Who with?"
"Japan, Nazi Germany and Italy. In your universe someone cured all his ailments. In this one someone exacerbated them so badly he died." answered Alexander.
"Being shot at don't help. That guy Zangara paralysed him. Wait a minute, did you say Japan? Were they still fighting the USSR?"
"Apart from the one battle between the Japs and the Russkis in 1939, they didn't fight at all until 1945. They signed a peace treaty and stuck to it."
"They were locked in war over the borders with Mongolia and Manchuria in my 1937. They couldn't fight the Soviets and Americans together. Why did the US got to war with Japan, then?"
"The Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor and sank most of the US Pacific Fleet"
"That's ridiculous! The USN woulda made mincemeat of them."
"Hmmm, yeah" said McCarthy, dismissively.
"I've seen the Japs up close – good at fighting other Orientals, but hopeless as-all-get-out versus the White man"
"They invaded the Phillipines,
"He's on James Smith's payroll"
"Sounds good to me. Did this 'James Smith' sell arms to any of the fascists, the Axis?"
"Not that I know of, virtually anyone else though. Who is President of the USA in 2015, if you don't mind my asking?"
"I have a picture of him here. Notice anything – unusual?"
"He's a goddamn N-Negro!"
"Don't look so surprised, it was going to happen eventually."
"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDD...but you're not, are you?" said Holtzmann, looking at McCarthy's unsmiling face "So the Negro race has pulled itself up enough to have a black candidate for President"
"More likely the so-called white race has pulled itself enough to stop being instinctive racists and vote for him. You didn't ask his name for instance" said Alex.
"What is it?"
"Barack Hussein Obama"
"He's an African? A Muslim?"
"Sounds like you will fit in fine with the 2016 GOP. He's a Democrat." said Alex, sourly.
"Godamnit, how? Your America's gone crazy. I'm a registered Democrat. I was a registered Democrat."
"You heard of a small time B-movie actor called Ronald Reagan?"
"I sat in a movie theater to keep out of the cold once last winter. He was lousy. Wooden. What of him?"
"He's your fortieth President in my world."
"Oh, you are just playing with me now! So when did this God-forsaken war you English are fighting actually end?"
"The British Empire is fighting it. For now at least. To answer your question. In 1945, when the Red Army tanks rolled into a shattered Berlin, and when the last two Japanese cities were burnt to the ground."
"The Red Army? The Soviets? But they have signed a tre-"
"When have the Nazis ever stuck to a treaty? It's World War Two – no-one ever said it had to make any sense. Prepare for the unexpected and expect to be unprepared. Though not so much of the latter, if I've got anything to do with it!"
Interlude in Asia
]The Kushanshahanshah looked at the painting, and said, in a received pronunciation accent "What in the blue blazes is it?"
Alikasundara IX Kushana Vasudeva Sōtēr, forty-eight-year-old product of Eton and Sandhurst, owner of two Derby winners, nominal ruler of 37 million people in the Indus and Oxus valleys, asked the actual seat of power, Sir George Cunningham, the viceregal governor.
"Well, apart from an aeroplane of some description, I have no idea. Where did you find it?"
"The satrap of Gandara found it in Government House, covered in dust" said the King of Kings.
"And McGregor brought it to you?" asked Sir George. The tradition was that half the regional governors (satraps) would be Englishmen, and half would be Kushans. Conveniently there were eighteen satrapi.
"Well, I am not an art expert, but it is not, in my opinion, but its not by a Eastern artist."
"If Alma-Tadema painted aeroplanes of future, it might look like this." said Eskander.
The Dharmarakṣita (supreme religious authority in the Kushan Protectorate, and advisor to Eskander) had called the picture 'Chariot of the Maitreya', but it was known by the only recognisable writing on the work of art. The digits 498.
It was not wise to question the mystical beliefs of the Kushanshahanshah, a devout Buddhist. Woe betide those who did not bow to the statue of Amitābha Buddha at the entrance to his palace in Takshashila (Lutyens had purpose-built New Delhi to outshine Takshashila). He would depart for his pilgrimage to the great shrine at Bāmiyān, scene of a great victory over the Kidarite Huns, in the next week.
His first act on ascending the throne in 1935 was to order the people of the town of Kuwatah to flee. This enraged the British colonial authorities who tried and failed to prevent 20,000 people from leaving. Weeks later Kuwatah was leveled by an earthquake that killed six thousand that had not heeded his call.
He thus earned the honorific Sōtēr ('saviour')
When you shook the hand of the Kushanshahanshah, you shook the hand of man who shook the hand of the man […] who shook the hand of Alexander the Great, Ashoka and Siddhārtha Gautama
The aircraft in the painting appeared to have the roundel of Kushan Imperial Air Force on it, and the terrain it was flying over appeared to from the Northern Frontier region.
However the KIAF only had Fiat CR-32, Hawker Hind and Westland Wapiti biplanes in its inventory. The order (placed by Alikasundara personally, using his own money) for eighteen Hawker Hurricanes monoplanes had been cancelled on the outbreak of the European war.
This aircraft did not even have a propeller. What on earth could it be?
Alikasundara had met Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Olympics, and had been utterly disgusted by the man, who had claimed to be a representative of the Aryan race. The ]Greco-Buddhist Indo-Europeans of Kushan had fought off all their would-be conquerors (the Mongols, the Huns, the Mughal emperors, and the Persians many times) and welcomed Zoroastrians and even Ismaili Muslims into their midst, until meeting their match with the British Empire. Alikasundara's predecessors had ruled Kushan since 180 BC, some 1300 years BEFORE the Prussians even existed! The Germans were underfed Teuton-Slavs, that the Bactrian regiments (as the Kushan troops were called, in service with the British Army) had defeated in East Africa and when they were deployed, finally, in Flanders in 1918.
The protection of British had been a blessing in disguise – to think they might have been colonised by the Russians, the way their Turkic Muslim brothers the Tajiks had!
The Army of the Indus had made the British, and their Sikh allies pay for their submission, in blood.
It was only the naval blockade and Siege of Barbarikon that had forced the Kushans capitulation.
~~~
It was that moment that Charlie chose the moment to reveal all she knew.
"The German guy Smith told us about. Scherssler is his name. We have something in common with him"
"Ugh. What?"
"He's a time traveler, too" said Charlie
<beat>
"I think that's the first time I've shut you up in a long time" continued Charlie.
"YOU. HAVE. GOT. TO. BE. JOKING"
"That James Smith guy told me, Elmer and Polina just before he disappeared"
"If anyone other than you, you and Polina, had tried this shit on with me, I'd say they were blowing smoke up my arse"
"That's what he told us. There's two of them, apparently."
"Oh, fuck"
"The other one is Japanese – called Kawagoochey, we think. Something like that. At least this is Smith's version of events." said Charlie.
"So why haven't the Nazis got jets, missiles, diesel-electric subs, Panther tanks, already?"
"That's what we thought. Maybe he's met the same level of resistance you did. But according to this Smith guy, he's made Hitler immortal. "
"NO ONE IS FUCKING IMMORTAL – wait a minute! Maybe that's why Hitler survived so many assassination attempts"
"Why didn't the Eyeties get a time traveler of their own?" asked Alex.
"Maybe they are gonna sit this one out" said Charlie.
"Benito is so far up Hitler's arse he needs a torch. I can't see them staying out of it for long" said Alex "any more bad news you've been keeping from me? Why didn't Tony tell me about these Hyperians?"
Charlie bit her tongue, but decided to tell Alex, anyway.
"Smith, he gave you…"
"Gave ME what? I thought this was bad news"
"...a nuclear weapon. Two nuclear weapons. Though if you dropped them from that" she pointed at the Tigercat, "or the Tucano you'd incinerate yourself."
McCarthy was stunned into silence for a second time.
"Where? At Bentwaters, or Cthulhu Base?"
"Cthulhu Base – are we going to keep calling it that?" said Charlie…
"A NUCLEAR WEAPON!? What the bloody hell use is that?"
"Drop it on the Germans, and presumably they will surrender, like the Japanese."
"The Japanese were surrounded, blockaded, nearly all their cities burnt to the ground. WHY WOULD THE GERMANS SURRENDER WHEN THEY CONTROL EUROPE FROM THE PYRENEES TO THE VISTULA? Just 'cos arf-a-million Germans got incinerated in one go?"
"Good point." replied Charlie.
"Why would this Smith guy give me those nukes?" asked Alex.
"He didn't. These Hyperian aliens did."
"And these Hyperians are the one's Cloney Tony's posthumans are fighting?"
"Search me. You better ask him." said Charlie
"You need one nuke for a demonstration, and another to back up your threat. If you've only got one no will believe you until you've killed 100,000 people – and then if they still won't surrender? How big are they?"
"About the size of a drop tank, he said"
"The yield, woman! THE YIELD!"
"Oh, 200 kilotons"
"A small thermonuke then. Arf-a-million dead, like I said. I'll never use it. NEVER! Not unless the Germans drop one first – which is within the realm of possibility if the Krauts are getting help from fucking time travelers. In fact thats the only thing I'd consider dropping a nuke on."
"The Nazi nuclear weapons program?"
"A Nazi nuclear weapons program, if one exists. No-one would attempt to build another one, if those are the kind of industrial accidents you get"
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