Worlds Change When You're Down On The Farm

Sometimes, even in the best of circumstances, the future may need to be given a nudge or two in the right direction.

58th President Of The United States-Albert Johnson

Steven couldn't believe his luck. As the world expanded outward, leaving less and less farmland available and most farms becoming corporate-owned, he was stunned to find an old farm that was spared being bulldozed. From the edge of the property, there was a line of sight that cleared a path between the old farm and the city center. The spot was perfect, offering enough distance and seclusion he could get set up and just wait. This was going to give Steven a birdseye view of the show.

He pulled up to the residence, which was nearly two hundred yards into the middle of a fifteen-acre plot of prime farmland. The residence, an old, white, two-story with a wrapping porch, was attractive. It reminded him of visits to his grandfather's farm as a child. He already imagined that nobody was home. A black Suburban pulls up to an old farmhouse with a stranger driving usually was met by a rifle-wielding owner. There was no sign of anybody, leaving the place deserted. Even though the place looked empty, Steven grabbed legend identity and walked up the porch steps, tentatively looking at the property as he knocked on the door.

"Where to set up at?" he asked himself, staring at the vantage points that the property offered.

From the house, there wasn't a straight line into town. He walked around the property until he lined up the county road that headed into the center of town. From standing alongside the edge of the farm, he looked down the center of the highway and turned around. The old barn was his best spot to line up a viewpoint that would give him the coverage he needed. After he took some measurements, the distance was 1.5 miles. It was a little further away from the city center than he would prefer but doable. He could set up the cameras, catch the motorcade going into the city, and have a view of the podium all from the old barn.

It took nearly three hours to set up his equipment. From the upper hayloft in the barn, Steven could see the entire area. The city was actually a nice, normal, little town in West Texas. If it weren't for the map application he might have needed a guide to find it, the town was so obscure. But, the news had broken and Cactus Texas was going to be the state's next boom town, as there was oil beneath nearly half the western side of the county. They were being given federal aid to get drilling operations and a refinery brought in. The operation would provide untold jobs and financial resources, essentially a future to a slowly fading town. For most, it was a time of jubilant celebration, as this third-world town in West Texas would get to join the rest of the world.

The motorcade was still far enough that he had time to kill. Steven poured a cup of coffee while he sat at the opening to the barn window. Starring through the lense, he watched people starting to form a line alongside the buildings going into town. The parade route was filling up fast as the locals and the state police lined the streets with barricades, keeping the route clear. There wasn't a leaf blowing, the flags were still, and the temperature was steadily sitting at ninety degrees. Everything was perfect for a West Texas evening. As he sat there, his phone rang. Looking at it, it was his mother. Steven hit accept and rested the phone on its side as the image of his mother appeared on the screen.

"What's up mom?" he asked.

The older lady on the video screen was Janice Archer. "I haven't heard from you since you left for Texas. I wanted to make sure you made it there in one piece."

"Yes, I'm here. Sorry, I didn't call but I've been working on a timetable. They're really keeping me under the gun with this project," he explained.

Steven checked his watch and looked through the scope lens again, checking the crowd and the area for signs of the motorcade. He was clear.

"I'll probably be finished here soon, so I'll head home after that. I should be in Virginia by this time tomorrow," explained Steven.

His mother gave him a disapproving scowl and hung up the call. Steven went back to watching the town through the lens. He was enjoying the quaint scenery. From one of the small shops, a brown-haired mother was bringing her son out with an ice cream cone. There was a couple walking through the slowly building crowd, holding hands as smiling blissfully at each other. Everybody seemed in good spirits, getting along, enjoying seeing one another and that was all about to come to a screeching halt. They just didn't know how their day was going to tragically end as the parade of squad cars, black Suburbans, and limousines came up the highway before turning onto the main road heading for Main Street in Cactus City.

Steven placed another call to a voice on the other side of the phone. When it was answered it was barely articulable in the beginning. He had to punch in a series of numbers to unlock the encryption on the call. Once that was done, he heard a much younger woman's voice. He also referred to her as "mother".

"This is Archer, 47589241, am I good to go?"

Archer waited for the response, looking down through the lens of the scope. The motorcade was already coming to a halt at the city center, and men in suits, with earpieces, and a full tactical compliment, were getting out of the motorcade and taking up their posts. In just a few moments, Elizabeth Johnson, The President of the United States, was going to take her post and she would tell the world that there was going to be enough oil coming out of Texas to support the country until the end of the century. By then, the need for fossil fuels was going to be gone. By 2133, there wasn't a fossil fuel using vehicle left on the planet. Shorter transportation was being done in nearly the blink of an eye with the new Delcox Matter Transportation Devices. Everything about the 21st century that pushed the planet to a near third world war finally brought the people of the world together for a common goal, survival.

Archer was the emissary of the future, the one person that was willing to go back through the wormhole and move things along at a faster pace. He was going to sacrifice his life there, as it was a one-way trip. This was his last, and final mission. Then, by happenstance, as the Delta-Team science division couldn't bring him back, he was done. He sat there, in a chair, looking at Cactus, Texas. This farm was going to make for a nice place to live. This place was an almost carbon copy of his grandfather's home, where he went to stay a month every summer. Some of the best times of his life were spent with the animals, in a barn much like this one. Cactus was much bigger, thirty-three years from where he was now.

"There she is," Archer spoke into the transmitter, "She's getting ready to make the announcement."

Mother never answered his transmission. Something was wrong. He was out of communication with the future and there was no time to waste. Killing the president would act as a catalyst speeding up the process of getting the world to turn its back on fossil fuels and embrace the newer, cleaner energy, initiatives on a timetable that would keep half the world from suffering. Lung cancers would disappear twenty years faster than they had, and there would be thirty-five percent fewer cases of rampant, violent storms that rocked the world around them all. The effects of global pollution and the dependence on fossil fuels were far worse than the early twenty-first century believed. This would speed things along so that the world he left behind would be completely safe, instead of just starting the right path.

Steven decided to complete his mission, as he sat there in that old barn. He would wait until she announced the find, the richest find of oil in American history. The massive amount of jobs that were going to be created would get the townsfolk excited and looking forward to a prosperous life for the first time in three generations. Within sixty-five years, the spot he was sitting, would be the West Texas Musk Tower, a stunning high point in the legacy of Joella Musk, the great, granddaughter of her twenty-first-century grandfather, and founder of Tesla and Space X.

"When this is over, maybe I'll buy this place," he thought, having brought back six million in old bills that would facilitate his new life and retirement here.

Listening to her speech, Steven leaned in, positioning the rifle against his right side, beneath his armpit. He had everything locked into place, on a table that was perfect for a nest. Seeing the crowd down there, watching the president speak, he felt bad for what he was about to do, but this needed to happen. It was...

"What the hell?" asked Steven as he watched the president speaking.

Steven moved slightly, seeing a man just to the right of the president. He looked familiar. Steven couldn't place him but the man looked far too familiar for him not to have seen him before today. 'Who are you?' wondered Steven. Then, like a swarm of locusts, the flashes in his mind nearly took him off of his chair. Memories came swarming through him, downloading into his hippocampus. Finally, Steven sat up straight. Not because of the man, because he had seen images of the man standing there with the president, and the woman next to him. His fathers' grandparents.

His father's grandparents died before his father, James Archer, was ever born into the world. Victims of mid-twenty-first century cancers that were still to erupt in the world. The near holocaust as the new, mutated cancers, spread around the world, cost his grandfather his family when he was just thirteen. Steven sinched the rifle, wrapped his fingers around the trigger, and as the crosshairs on the lens landed where he wanted, he watched from over a mile away as the president's lurched, slumping back into the line of dignitaries behind her.

A couple of hours later Steven was on the main road leading into town. He walked into a small office that was in an area where the front of the building was glass. He knew the building type, they called the strip malls. A man behind a desk stood up and welcomed him with a deep Texan accent.

"Can I help ya son?"

"Well," he said, "I'm interested in an empty old farm plot about a mile and a half out of town."

"You mean the old Archer place," laughed the Texan. "Why there? We've got plenty of spots for sale."

"That one, with the old barn that's painted red and white, has a charm I like. And, I've got cash," Steven announced.

"Well hell, why didn't you say so? Sit down, let's talk some business son, let's talk some business."