[AC] Anthology 2: Lonely Stranger: I & II

>From Artifice Comics:
http://www.digitallymystic.com/sites/fiction/ac/

---

Anthology Two Presents
Lonely Stranger:
"I & II"
By Aaron Baugh

I.

The blue light surrounded me again, and I stepped through the portal.

The world was green. Lush and beautiful, with an atmosphere so thick
with humidity and pollen and the smells of life that I nearly couldn't
breath. Not that I needed to, if it came to that.

I took off my jacket and bent to re-lace my boots. They usually needed
a good tightening before things started to happen. In my line of work
things went downhill fast once they took a turn towards nasty.

As I did, I pinched a bit of the dirt under my feet and put it in my
mouth like it was snuff, dip, smokeless tobacco. Not that I ever did
any of that stuff, but I rolled it around, tasted the grit, felt it,
knew that it was good soil, high phosphate content. There was powdered
limestone in it too, iron oxide that indicated water had been here
before. Maybe a shallow ocean, maybe an old riverbed. It didn't really
matter, because my mind was slowly getting the reason why I was here.

I was here to kill a wayward angel.

Now, don't get all mushy about angels. I don't mean your romanticized
little cherub, flitting about with feathered wings and fat cheeks. No
halos, either. See, in all of Existence, there has to be someone to
keep order. That's the angel's jobs. They're the middle managers, each
one watching over a dimension or three and keeping things nice and
tidy.

With Existence having an infinite number of dimensions, you can
imagine that there are many many angels. Not that they're a dime a
dozen, mind you, but sometimes these angels turn into demons. Look at
Lucifer. Beelzebub, Satan...all demons, or angels, really. Demons is
just easier because we KNOW that they're evil. Or are they? Instilling
fear and instilling awe are only two shades of the same color: Power.
Pure, unadulterated, come cower before me Power.

I've got a little of that myself, which is why I can flip off an angel
and not be burned to ash or turned to a pillar of salt because of it.

But back to my mission. The angel who watches overthis dimension and
six others like it has made some poor decisions. Tired of its
management job, it decided to take matters into its own hands and
descend amongst the underlings it was meant to manage. Imagine
it...you're doing your thing, and an angel drops onto your lap, says
do things my way or suffer. What do you do?

These people fought. Some capitulated, some joined, some worshipped
the angel like it expected and wanted them to. The worshippers got the
cushy jobs as the managers of the conquered, and a general malaise set
in where the angel was adored and the people kept on living in fear of
it.

So it's a demon now, right? 

Kind of. Try to stay with me.

So I'm standing in a forest and it comes to me that this angel doesn't
live anywhere nearby. In fact, it's on the other side of the world.

Now, we get to choose. How do I get there? Plane, train, automobile?
Ship or hot-air balloon? Mag-lev or horse-drawn carriage?

Or do I fly? Teleport right to where I need to be and
wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am?

I'm impatient today, and I appear where I need to be.

Unfortunately, the angel has a bit of the omniscience talent too, and
it knows that I'm here, maybe even knows why. The point is, surprise
went out the window as soon as I popped into existence before the
gates to its palace.

And what a palace!

A pyramid, white and glossy in the late afternoon sun, rose before me,
its tip at least a thousand feet above ground. Its massive base seemed
to cover a square mile, and I realized right then that my angel lived
at the top of this thing.

I smiled, looking at the columns that adorned the gates, crowned with
gold and silver images of the ruling angel. To my left was a building
where its military leaders among the populace lived, further on was
where they kept their weapons. Super-tanks that mounted rail-guns and
aircraft that could pierce the atmosphere and rain laser fire on any
earth-bound target.

Even when the angel was dead, these assholes would remain in power so
long as they had weapons with which to force their opinions on their
fellow man. Would be a shame to waste my only opportunity to help out
the populace.

Despite what I do, I am, deep down, a good guy. 

* * *

A blinking light on the wall of the General's quarters blossomed into
a full-blown klaxon, loud and shrill and complete with pulsing red
light. He sat up, his dark, silver-streaked hair sticking up at odd
angles from his slumber.

Bad things always happened when he took a nap. 

A holo-screen flashed into existence above his bed, and the face of
God-on-Earth appeared, its face almost shockingly white, its eyes a
serene blue. "General," it said, "there is an intruder on the palace
grounds. Mobilize your forces and crush him."

"Wha-" he began, rubbing the crust of sleep from his eyes. "Yes, of
course, Lord. Where is he?"

That's when I made my entrance. In the time it took for the angel to
realize I was about to knock on its front gates and notify its
military forces, I had crossed to the little installation and was busy
raising a little hell of my own.

Smashing toys wasn't something I did, I'm sure, though I can't really
remember; but this sure was fun. First were the sentries. I'm sure
they were only doing their duty, and that's why I didn't kill them
outright. Instead, I ran through their gate, arms outstretched to
either side, and a brief flash of white light made them fall into a
deep sleep. Or a moderate concussion. Not much difference, really.

Before I'd gotten to the main hangars, because I was running at
natural human speed, you see, the General had managed to get his boys
moving. A barracks across the field opened and a tide of soldiers
poured out, some with rifles. Most headed for the massive garages
where their tanks and personnel carriers were stored. They didn't
notice me until I started to do my thing.

I took a deep breath, and felt the Power rising up inside of me. The
pavement at my feet began to crack, then was divided in a net of
lines, me at the center. It pulsated with bright white light, and a
nimbus began to come from me. I was Power.

With a thought, I released it, and sound stopped. 

There was a shell of pulsing white energy, me at its center. It
suddenly arced out in every direction at once, thinning out into a
wide ribbon that shredded and destroyed everything in its path.
Buildings were razed like haystacks in a whirlwind, massive engines of
battle were knocked over like toys and thrown along the ground until
they were useless slabs of metal. Men were knocked down, sent sliding
along the ground until stopped by another body or a ruptured
foundation. Those caught too near the center ceased to exist in pieces
larger than a fingernail.

As the wave subsided, the thundering roar of air filling the vacuum
burst the eardrums of those still living, and when it died, I alone
stood in the center of a massive wreck.

I'd even taken a corner of the angel's pyramid with me. 

I knew that there were survivors, I knew exactly where they were. Most
were under rubble, not enough to kill, but they'd take some time in
getting out, less when helped by others who would undoubtedly come to
their aid. It was enough, and I peered at the top of the pyramid.

A blur. A shimmer of light, and I was there. 

* * *

The angel's throne room was like something out of a fairy-tale. Golden
floors layered with thick silk carpets, silvery walls that arched up
to a ceiling that mimicked the sky without error. Objects of art were
here and there, not enough to be gaudy, were it not for the subject
matter. Numerous representations of the angel itself were all that
could be seen. One with the angel astride a horse; one with the angel
holding a lightning bolt, standing astride the world; another with its
hands raised towards the sky in supplication. How dull.

The last work of art was the angel itself, standing in this room at
the tip of the pyramid, looking through an oval window at the
destruction I'd wrought. I looked at its back; saw that it had chosen
to take the shape of a man.

Good. It always made it easier for me. 

Its voice was a deep baritone. I wish mine sounded like that. 

"So you have come. It has been millennia for this dimension since I
came to them. Has it taken that long for you to be sent?"

"Obviously," I answered, and I stuck my hands in the front pockets of
my jeans after adjusting my jacket. It was a bit cold in here.

When it turned, its blue eyes met mine, and I knew that it sensed its
own death.

"I could send a world against you." 

"You wouldn't be the first." 

Its eyebrow quirked, an expression I myself was fond of making. "I did
not think those such as you had memory."

"A few things stick. It isn't true memory, that's to be sure. But
people know that they ate last week. They may not know what they ate,
exactly, but they're sure of it, just as they're sure of using the
bathroom and every other mundane thing that their existence requires.
I know that someone, somewhere, somewhen, sent armies against me.
Couldn't tell you who, offhand, but I'm here now, so I guess I won."

"War against a world, or worlds, is mundane?" 

"Is to me." 

Its blue eyes narrowed. "You stand in the way of my plans." 

I shrugged. "More the other way around, really. You seem to be the one
trying to paddle upstream."

It walked towards me, a being of pale flesh and perfect musculature,
dressed in a white garment somewhat like a tabard, but with sleeves.
"What will happen to this world, and the others that I have governed?"

"I don't know," I said, honestly. "But the wave they represent won't
knock the ship off course."

It stared at me, pondering, for long moments until a light of
understanding broke over its face. "An apt metaphor. It is amazing to
those of my kind that there are those like you, entrusted with powers
rivaling ours, who have to think on the terms of humans."

I spread my arms wide. "What do you call this?" 

It didn't break eye contact with me. "Opulence. A setting, if you
will. The people I govern must see me as a thing to worship and fear.
They have created this palace for me because it fits their belief of
what my home should be."

"Ah," I said, as the energy began to grow inside of me. "I understand.
But there's something that you have gotten wrong."

"Which is?" 

"My power doesn't rival yours. It exceeds it." And that was when two
bright beams came from my eyes, joined by others from my hands, joined
by another from my chest, until my body itself glowed like the hellish
maw of an otherworldly cannon, aimed straight at the core of the angel
across the room from me.

When the energy struck him/it, it screamed with a terrible voice that
began to shake the room itself. The statue of the angel on horseback
tipped onto the floor, the angel astride the world wobbled, then
crashed against the marble leg of the horse, shattering.

The beam drove the angel to its knees, where it remained for a long
time even after I had stopped.

Its head snapped up suddenly, and I swear that I flinched back. 

"What have you done to me?" it asked, voice tremulous, seeking. 

I bent to one knee. "I've taken your godhood from you," I said. "I've
given the people of this planet just another paper tiger to burn."

It swung at me, and I backed out of the way. It lunged, shoulder
driving into my belly and backing me up against the wall. I brought my
knee up into its ribs, then again, and when it loosened its grip
enough, I gripped the tabard and rammed his bald head into the wall.

He fell, for it was now a he. Just a human man. I stepped over him,
and he got to his feet, a hand touching the wall for support. "What
now?" he asked, and spat blood.

"Either I end it, or they do," I said, indicating the rest of the
world with a head gesture towards the window.

"I don't deserve to die at their hands," it said, piteously. "Or
yours."

I shrugged, and extended my right hand towards him. I thought I'd have
words for him, but I didn't. Instead, there was a white nimbus around
my hand, and the angel dissolved in a blossom of white fire that
destroyed him from the inside out. He dropped to the floor, and made
no noise as the ethereal fires consumed him.

I felt the tug at the core of my being that things were nearly done
here. Already other elements of the angel's military closed on the
base I'd destroyed. They'd help the survivors there, and then they'd
find their master at the top of his pyramid. I decided that they'd
find me there, too.

* * *

It was only a quarter of an hour before the first of them began to
arrive. There were twelve of them, all armed, led by a young man with
black hair and dark eyes. Somehow I knew the metallic crest at his
breast marked him as an Officer, Third Class. He was the one who spoke
to me, seeing as how I was sitting on the arm of the angel's throne.

"Who are you?" he demanded, showing his authority with the barrel of
his rifle. His troops fanned out to a semi-circle, every weapon
pointed at me. They all avoided the darkened, charred remains of their
ruler. "Where is -"

"Dead," I said, cutting him off. I pointed to the remains. "That's all
that's left."

Silence. 

"You. . . you killed him?" 

"It, really. Angels don't have a sex. They choose a form." 

He scowled. "How?" 

"That doesn't really matter, Victor," I said, hopping down from my
seat. He was clearly amazed that I knew his name, though he didn't ask
how. "Your Lord was an angel. As in an angel of God. Surely you have
legends on why this particular creature reigns over you? How he
arrived, things like that?"

"We do," he began. "From times long past. Our lord was the only proof
of these legends. But you speak of God . . . religion has been banned
for centuries."

Ah, I thought. Easier to work with a clean slate. No competition.
History written by the winners. "Then how do you know about it?" I
smiled.

"It's taught to us from an early age. We learn the fallacies of those
who came before us, so that we may not repeat them."

"I've got news for you," I told him. "Those fallacies are more
accurate than you thought. Believe this, Officer Third Sullivan, you
may not believe in God, but you should fear him, sure as I'm standing
here."

A soldier edged closer on my right, and I looked at him. There was a
flash and he was hurled against the wall, sliding down into an
unconscious heap.

Mistake. 

The rest opened up, and I was the center of a hail of bullets. Very
uncomfortable. After the half-second of surprise at the sheer guts of
this assembled group, I got to grips with the Power again and once I
did, those bullets began striking me and stopping dead in their
tracks, sliding to the ground or bouncing off in pathetic little arcs.

The officer shouted, and the gunfire stopped. I knew I was glowing. I
wanted them to see it.

"Ever see your Lord do something like this?" I asked. "Did you see him
pick up great weights and float above crowds before your eyes? Did
someone try to kill him and did you see them smited before him?"

Victor was trembling. Without knowing it, I'd used the Power to
amplify myself, to make my voice deeper and more imperious than the
angel's had thought of being.

"Know this." A pause. "You are now free men and women, free to choose
your own leaders, your own destinies. Do not destroy yourselves, and
follow your own paths. Fail to do so, and I will return to you. What I
will do then will make this day look like a spark beside a fire."

Victor nodded, all of them nodded, and I felt the tug even harder. It
was time to go. Again. The nimbus faded from my skin, and I walked
towards them. The officer moved aside, as did the four men around him,
and I passed through them. I could see the portal ahead of me, a
pinpoint of light. As I moved closer, it irised into a hole into
nothing, rimmed in blue, and I stepped through.

I wouldn't remember Victor Sullivan, Officer Third Class, but before I
left that world of the angel and his pyramid, I knew that he would be
the one to lead that world back to its proper path. He had, after all,
spoken to the man who had slain their Lord.

Religion, or some form of it, had returned. 

As for me, I went on my way. 

* * *

II.


The blue light surrounded me again, and I stepped through the portal. 

Right into the middle of a battlefield. In every battle I'd ever been
in, the smell of death was always there, no matter if the weapons were
machine guns, swords, or exotic 'ray guns' that could burn metal.
Something told me, maybe the smell of this world, that the flashy
powers wouldn't cut it here, that this was less monumental than
striking down an angel. Here, I had to keep up appearances.

Cool. 

The explosion behind me tossed me to the ground, and if I hadn't been
nigh-immortal, I would have been laced with shrapnel, I know. The face
full of mud and blood and oil told me that this was a world in a very
grimy, very dark time. Very close, over the crunching sound of
artillery falling nearby, I heard the squeal of gears, the sound of a
grunting diesel, smelled the tang of exhaust and gunpowder.

A huge tank, mottled gray and green over brown, churned past, with
gray-clad men trotting along behind.

Absently, I noted that the artillery had stopped, moved to the east.
The memory for this world was kicking in. I was on Earth, in 1948, and
the Nazis had just crossed the Mississippi, driving for Chicago. I was
in Illinois.

"Steh auf!" ordered a voice above me, and I saw the black boots in
front of me, felt the prod of a bayonet between my shoulder blades. So
I stood up.

"Haende hoch!" He told me to put my hands up. Always been a whiz at
languages.

Not really. 

A few hours later, I was led to a small holding area for POWs, near
the ruined outskirts of St. Louis, marched with a few dozen other
captured American soldiers, each of them stewing at their capture.
Once we were behind the barbed wire, I turned to my new compatriots.

"So, Zeke, what now?" I asked. "Escape, right?" 

The largest of the POWs who'd arrived with me scowled. "I know you?"
he asked, his accent very Hispanic. Mud made my boots and jeans and
leather jacket look like his bedraggled uniform enough for him not to
ask any uncomfortable questions, at least not yet.

"Sure you do," I told him, "1st of the 303rd, right? I've got a thing
for faces."

"Yeah," said Zeke. "Guess so. Name?" 

I fought the urge to snap to attention. "Baker, Benjamin, Lieutenant,
4662372. Call me Ben."

"Didn't figure you for an officer." 

"Field commission. Last one left to get a promotion." 

We shook hands. Zeke introduced me to the men I already knew. Linc and
Vern from Wisconsin, brothers. Sammy and Duke were from Indiana,
though not related. Ken was a New Yorker, like Zeke, and Brian was
from Boston. All in all, we had quite a little crew right here. A
sergeant, lots of PFCs, none of them a simple rifleman.

Zeke had been a digger before the war, building tunnels for the
subways. Brian had been a boxer, and looked it by his nose. Sammy and
Duke had worked cars and tractors since diapers, and Ken was both a
demolitions man and forward observer for artillery. Lots of good
skills here, like an Army all-star team.

Then there was me, nigh-immortal and unstoppable in my own right.
Shame I couldn't clap my hands and let the thunder roll out. And oh,
did it want to.

There weren't any buildings at this camp, nothing but a slit latrine
at the north end. They were just holding us until they got a machine
gun ready to end it for us all, I was sure of it.

"Where you from?" asked Ken. "Florida," I said, the lie simple.
Anything for appearances. "101st, B company. Tried a deep strike, hit
a bridge before SS caught us. What was left scattered, headed back for
the front."

"You sure found it." 

I laughed. "I sure did." 

The past of this world rolled through my mind, and I fastened onto the
last few decades of it, wondering what had happened.

In 1918, the USA hadn't intervened in the Great War, and England had
stood alone against the Germans and their Hungarian allies in Europe,
while abandoning the Middle East and Africa to the Turks. Japan hopped
into the fracas, but in a matter of months had been driven back out of
Korea and China. The US sat idly by, and eventually England collapsed.
The Queen fled to Canada, where she set up shop.

Having finished with Europe, the Kaiser had settled down, and launched
his offensive against Russia after taking fifteen years to consolidate
his hold on Europe. The Turks sat out this round, and Wilhelm bullied
his way to Moscow, leaving the rest of Russia beyond the Urals to the
tribal people of the steppes.

In the meantime, the US half-heartedly pursued a war against Mexico,
started for some dumb reason or another, and began to actually lose
when German units started appearing amongst the Mexican troops. This
was 1935.

A concerted push put the Mexicans back on their side of the Rio
Grande, and the border became extremely militarized, the focus of US
military might.

That's why there isn't much of a military left to defend the country.
In 1940, a little dude named Himmler set out to finish the job the
Mexicans couldn't. After a brilliant series of amphibious landings cut
them off from their supplies, the military on the Mexican border was
crushed in a dazzling display of military know-how. German
sympathizers within the military defected in droves, and a few units
pulled back, putting the desert and the Rocky Mountains between them
and the enemy.

That's when the war began in earnest. Florida and New York were
subject to amphib landings, while the Wehrmacht tore through Texas and
spread east, solidifying the Gulf coast and opening the way for
massive re-supply by sea. Not that captured American factories weren't
good enough, but whatever.

In short, lots of America wasn't America anymore. Sure, the Canadians
came to help, but that only stabilized the losses. New York was
retaken, but the damage was done there already. The defensive line at
the Mississippi broke, and now here they were in St. Louis, seven
miles behind the front lines.

"Seven miles," I said out loud. 

"What's that?" asked Zeke. 

"Nothin'. Last I knew, I was only seven miles away from the lines." 

"War's over for us," said Zeke. 


"I don't think so," I said. "We'll get out of this." 

"How?" asked Brian. "You gonna snap your fingers and have a cah (it's
car, he's from Boston, remember) show up? Maybe wave a hand and knock
out these gahds?"

I could, you know. Easy. Walk up and pick up that Tiger tank by its
barrel and do a hammer throw. But I couldn't, and I knew it, and
that's why I was pissed off. But I could do little things, right?

Sure I could. 

"Look, we're going to a camp, right?" I said. "We'll escape, hide in
the towns."

"No way. Krauts aren't taking prisoners anymore." He nodded towards a
cloth-sided truck, flanked by a handful of submachinegun-wielding SS
troopers. They were moving towards the barbed wire.

I looked, then turned to my group. "Stay close. And when I move, help
out a little, 'k?"

Zeke frowned, his mouth formed to ask a question when I turned and
jogged towards the gate where the truck had just stopped. A stream of
young men, all in gray with dark German helmets, dropped out of the
truck. A firing squad.

How quaint. 

Before I got to the gate, the guard there turned and unlatched it for
the firing squad, nobody really paying attention to me. That meant he
didn't have his hands anywhere near his weapon. I lunged for the gate
as it began to swing in, and I shoved it back at the guy, was
satisfied when the wood post broke his nose.

I caught his body just as all hell broke loose. 

The firing squad brought up their weapons, and I knew that behind me,
my group was going to ground. I was the center of attention, and I
knew it. I grabbed the guy's gun, flicked the safety off, and held his
body in front of me as I fired.

The little shield I put around myself and my group, plus the other
American and Canadian/English troops, wasn't glowing, wasn't flashing.
It was invisible, and I knew that it'd work.

The MP40 leapt in my hands, a living thing, and I worked it down the
entire line of soldiers, dropping them one by one. I let off the
trigger and let the bullet-sprayed body of the guard drop to the mud.

"You need an invitation?" I asked the others, and they stared at me
for only a second before Zeke led the general rush to strip the bodies
of weapons and commandeer the truck.

A nearby building emptied of soldiers, and there were those who
couldn't hope to fit on the truck. "If you've got a gun, stay!" I
shouted.

The truck roared to life and Zeke tore off, thinking a moving target
was best. He was right, and the troops in the building worked their
weapons that way, leaving me and my little crew of a dozen or so to
rake them with our own fire.

So we went into the building, which was a combined headquarters and
barracks for this little outfit of prison guards cum executioners. A
couple of the guys spoke German, so the radio reports were simple to
make out. After grabbing more weapons and ammo, plus stocking up on
med supplies and what food we could find, we met up with Zeke, loaded
the truck, and got the hell out of dodge.

And that's how it went for three months. My little band didn't attempt
to cross the lines. We were having too much damn fun where we were. I
was almost forgetting that the very thing I had come here to do was
approaching. Sure, I could have gone straight to the job, but there
were things that needed to be done here, too. So I cut out the top of
the Nazi power structure...so what? No.

I had to give these people hope. Show them that there were still
people to fight. I had to give them a hero, or heroes. My tiny army
became an elite cadre by constant practice and attrition.

We'd raid, strip weapons and food, steal vehicles. Hell, we had two
tanks until the beasts ran out of gas. I was having fun using the
Power in little ways, making sure that the bullets fired at us didn't
hit, but didn't do crazy things like stop them in mid-air. I just
deflected them a little.

But that wouldn't do for the guys. Some had to get wounded, and I
couldn't protect them every second. More than a few fell, but we
raided the few work camps we found, rescued American Jews being sent
to hastily thrown up camps that were the most terrible places I'd ever
seen.

That's how I found myself at the head of a small army, sneaking our
way towards Denver, and my ultimate goal.

* * *

Himmler was in North America, and I was going to kill the little
fucker.

I knew that three months had passed, eighty-four days, to be precise.
Usually these things were quick. In, out, next.

At least, I thought that was the way it went. Usually, anyway. 

So, in addition to my 'mission,' I came to realize that we were
turning the tide. Front-line units were being turned back to hunt us
down, or they didn't get their ammunition in time to make an attack.
Trucks and tanks couldn't work without gas, so there were entire
fields of abandoned, first-class military equipment left on the vine,
with no gas.

Troops retreated from a reinvigorated American army, and the English
helped to push them back across the Mississippi and into Kansas and
Nebraska. The best part was that they used their captured German
equipment marvelously, refitting it as necessary until more supplies
fell into their hands. And they always did.

They called us the Marauders, because we did start working with the
frontliners, as we called them. I knew where everybody was, of course,
all across the continent, but I set my crew up spectacularly.

Zeke got news that his wife and kid were okay, via the same radio we
used to send troop and formation updates to DC. He was the mouthpiece,
the man I'd set up as the contact man with the military. I made him
vow to never use my name on the radio. He obeyed, and just called me
'Lieutenant' or 'L-T. '

So that's how it was when I knew that the zeppelin had landed in
Houston. A brief train ride later, and the evil genius who'd
engineered the fall of the western world was in Denver, attempting to
buoy the flagging spirits of his grand army.

He was quite surprised when the Marauders ambushed his convoy and took
him prisoner. I personally watched over him, and waited until we were
alone before I began to systematically beat the shit out of him.

No, not really. 

But I wanted to. I mean, really, deep down, wanted to beat this
shrimpy, shrewish guy in the tiny glasses to a pulp. I could feel the
evil. No shit.

So I talked to him, asked him about his life, about the Reich. 

He never talked back, so I decided to pass judgment. 

"Heinrich Himmler, I, as an agent of God, do hereby sentence you to
death."

I said it all out of the blue like that, and that shook his tongue
loose.

"What?" he said, the accent heavy, his English clipped. "Are there not
rules? Laws?" He smiled. "I will be put in court, if you can get me to
your authorities."

"I'm all the authority I need," I said, pointing my thumb at my own
chest. "And I've got it on very good authority that you're going to
the Very Hot Place for an eternity. I hope that your first day is your
shortest, and may that day last you ten lifetimes."

Himmler's eyes went wide as I pulled the Luger from my waistband. 

It was almost time to go. I felt the tug, sudden, insistent. Dormant
for months, never close, and now this. I almost hated to leave.

But, things to do first. "I sentence you to death for the murder of
Nineteen million, seven hundred and six thousand, nine hundred and
fifty-six men, women, and children in Europe and the Americas."

"It was war," he spat. 

"Bullshit, fucko. These people didn't have any weapons, didn't
represent a side. They were beyond even the normal civilian
casualties. They were too Jewish, too Gypsy, too Cossack, too
Orthodox, and too innocent. I hope each of them picks a day to beat
your ass in Hell. No more making waves for you."

He looked vaguely confused along with his terror, and that's when I
heard and smelled him shit himself, right before I pulled the trigger
and littered the room with skin, brain, and bone.

I tossed the pistol into the dead man's lap, and left the room. 

Zeke caught me in the hallway, panting from a dead run. More heads
popped into the hallway from the rooms of the hotel we'd commandeered.
"L-T?"

"It's over," I said to Zeke, and I paused as the tug grew again and
the future of this Earth became more focused. I clapped him on the
shoulder. "Don't let that Englishman, Burke, get you down," I said.

"What?" 

"You'll understand later. Himmler's dead now. The Allies are in
Wyoming, now, coming this way from the east and the north. Knock 'em
out of Mexico for me, Zeke. And do good things."

He was dumbfounded, but recovered. "I will. Wait. What? You leaving?" 

"Yep. Got orders from the man at the top." 

"General Patton talk to you on the wireless?" 

I laughed. "Not Patton, but close. G'bye, Zeke." 

And I left. 

* * *

A few minutes later the tug was uncontrollable, and I knew that there
wasn't anyone nearby to see me walk off into thin air, into a hole
only I could see.

This world didn't need a messiah, or a light show, or a reintroduction
of religion. They didn't need to know that there was a very active and
attentive God looking out for them by, incidentally, looking out for
himself. They had their own ideas, and from the ashes of this
conflict, good things would come. Some bad, of course, because that's
the nature of good and bad.

If the Allies hadn't beaten back that invasion, they wouldn't have
championed another crusade, a peaceful one, to unite the world under
one body and to step beyond the limits of earth.

As for me, I went on my way.