“Nigger filth,” the leader muttered, and waved a hand at his men. Quickly, neatly, they pulled on their robes and then lifted their weapons; baseball bats and coshes, canes and whips. One of them cracked a whip and laughed horribly; the leader slapped him across the face.
“Quiet, you fool,” he muttered. “You’ll be the unmaking of us!”
He watched as the last black man entered the church and the doors were closed, before leading his team forward. Their approach was unobserved; no one noticed them as they surrounded the church, pouring petrol around the wooden building.
“Can I help you gentlemen?”
The leader glanced up sharply, to see a young black man looking down at them. His army experience sounded an alarm; the man didn’t seem frightened or scared of their white robes, more amused than anything else. His hands were concealed behind his back; he showed no fear or submission.
“You can die, nigger,” one of the team snapped. The leader’s mental alarm bell rang louder; the black man was acting like a soldier. “Die!”
“No, Willy,” the leader snapped, but it was too late. Willy lifted his whip, brought it up, and the black man produced a weapon from behind his back. The leader stared at it; it conveyed a sense of… deadliness, far more than any of the weapons that had been used in the Great War. Before Willy could take another step forward or run for his life, the man shot him neatly in the forehead.
“You are named after a dick?” The man asked, as Willy’s head exploded. “I could take you prisoner, but quite frankly… I can’t be bothered.”
The leader hadn’t told anyone about the pistol in his belt. He grabbed for it, too late. The weapon, whatever it was, hissed, and a stream of fire lashed across the Klansmen. The leader died quickly, without ever knowing what had killed him. The others took longer to die.
The man who, in another world, had been Marine Lieutenant Jones Robinson carefully secured his weapon before deactivating the camouflage unit in his suit. It was one of a handful of suits, and he had no way of recharging the batteries, and who knew; it might come in handy again, later.
“Well, that was fun,” he said, as soon as the weapon was safely away. “Grandpa?”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Jackie Robinson said. He looked younger than his future grandchild. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”
Jones shrugged. “Back where I come from, the shackles on brothers are very different and far harder to throw off,” he said. “Shooting scum like those is much easier.”
“I’m sure,” Jackie said. “They’re all here; the young men of three villages.”
“Thanks, Grandpa,” Jones said. “It’s time to deliver the message.”
He stepped inside the church and nodded politely to the pastor. The church was packed with young man, mainly black and a handful of Mexicans. They’d heard of him, heard of the message he brought, despite the efforts of the Klansmen to stamp it out.
“Brothers,” he said, as he took the pulpit. “I believe that you all know who I am; I was carried backwards in time by whatever force transported all of Britain back in time. Of the religious factions, some believe – and I believe –that this is an opportunity, a second chance, if you will, to change the mistakes of history.
“Where – rather when – I come from, the world is very different. For a man to shout, ‘hey nigger’ is a criminal offence. To discriminate on behalf of someone or against him, purely on skin colour, is an offence. Incidentally, this applies to the sisters as well; anyone who wolf-whistles can go to jail as well.”
This brought some chuckles. “It’s not heaven,” he said. “Many of us are trapped in slums, unable to break out of them; we are dependent upon handouts from the government and drugs from further south. It has become impossible, for fear of being called racist, for anyone to point out that we need more than simple handouts; we need education and opportunities, something that we cannot get because of the mindset that prevents us from realising that there is a problem.”
He grinned. “Hopefully, that won’t mean anything to you,” he said. “My grandfather” – he waved a hand at Jackie – “will play major-league baseball in the future, and he will deserve the awards, but that will change. In 2015, some people get jobs – because their employers are scared of being accused of racism! We go from one extreme to the other; objects of hatred to objects of resentment!
“Is this the way you want it to be?”
“No,” they shouted. Jackie led the shout. “No!”
“There is a war on,” Jones said calmly. “Already, many of us are receiving the call-up papers; historically, we will fight and bleed to grant people liberties that we do not enjoy! I ask you; is that right?”
“No,” they shouted again.
“If we had arrested the men outside, the police would have let them go,” Jones said. “I killed them, merely to teach their followers a lesson. I’ve been moving around a bit, from place to place, building a network of people who will stand up for their rights. Will you join me?”
“Yes,” they shouted. Jones smiled; some hadn’t joined in the shout, others looked doubtful. Still, they had listened.
“Here, in the US of A, we are entitled to vote,” he shouted. “We are entitled to elect our own representatives, and do we? No! We don’t – because we are threatened and intimidated and we’re not going to take it any more! Never again shall we submit to tyranny; we will not be overcome by the remains of an evil that was blasted away during the civil war!”
“A powerful speech,” Pastor Williams said, afterwards. “Many thousands will go to the Lord because of it.”
“I know,” Jones said. “We have to resist, we have to make a stand now, before it’s too late.”
Pastor Williams ran a hand through his dark curly hair. He was old enough to remember slavery, to remember being a slave-child. “You’re talking about starting a war,” he said.
“The war has always been fought,” Jones said. “Their greatest weapon was fear and terror; I had to show them that we could fight on equal terms.”
“And can we?” Pastor Williams asked. “They have the Army, do they not?”
“We have some soldiers of our own,” Jones said. “This has to be mainly peaceful; domestic uprisings rarely end well.”
Pastor Williams narrowed his eyes. “Then why the weapons training?”
Jones frowned. “Just in case they insist on making it violent,” he said. He chuckled. “You can normally rely on racists to do the stupid thing.”
Sheriff Lewis stumbled into his house later in the night, almost morning. It had been a long night; the bodies of nine white men had been found in a field. They had all been killed, executed, with a very strange weapon. Lewis, who had fought in the war, suspected that it was a machine gun.
He stopped, gasping. Ahead of him, with her back to him, his wife was tied to a chair. Their children, the two young girls, were also tied to the table, their hands helplessly secured. Cursing, fearing that they had been violated, he stepped forward and felt cold metal at his neck.
“Good evening, Sheriff,” a voice said. “I trust that you like my gift?”
“What are you doing?” Lewis demanded. The cold metal of the gun pressed him forward. “What do you want with me?”
The voice sounded coldly amused. “In the last months, you beat up five black people for stealing, despite the total lack of evidence. They were helpless against you… and you are helpless against me. I could have killed your children, raped and then killed your wife… do you understand?”