"You kept your word and delivered 1.50 a gallon by Christmas."

Cheney looks at me with a sly smile.

"Don't I always keep my promises?"

"Yes, you do."

"I read your interview for Fox News. Nice job."

"Yes, I had fun with it."

"It's nce out here."

"Nice? It's 50 degrees. This is freezing."

"You haven't been up north have you?"

Cheney and I walk down to the sub-basement of the Vice President Residence. The one which houses the time travel lab.

"You sure you want to go through with this? After all you might meet up with a Cheney that actually lives up to my critics opinions when you return."

"I know the risks. This timestream has gone completely astray. It's time to make some constructive changes. But first I want to go forward a bit and make sure it is necessary."

"Okay."

I step in and soon feel the familiar flash and pulse.

The world of twenty twenty one is very dark. The climate is cold. Global warming is the favorite climate joke as deep freezes keep increasing in numbers and appearing in places they were unheard of before 2015.

I have been here one week. Everything I have seen indicates I need to go back in time again and try and change events for the better. America's 345 million citizens are at a 30 percent unemployment rate. Starvation reappeared in big numbers in 2014 after farms were taken over by the Dept of Agriculture and after massive corruption in the US Health System "lost" 50 million tons of grain, rice, wheat, corn and barley - presumably sold and reallocatted to other nations for sizable bribes. A trip to the library was informative. All paper books are gone. The library is a collection of about fifty screens in neat rows and to check out a book you stand before a screen input your library card code and have access to the files for two weeks. They can be downloaded via the library server but are only viewable on a coded software to prevent piracy. Librarians are gone. Obsolete.

Barack's Presidency was the bomb of bombs. After the closing of the big three in 2009, the entire retail sector went belly up. Department stores were falling left and right and even Wal-mart, that corrupt promoter of local poverty, was down 25 percent in sales by the close of 2010. Shopping malls are now mostly all gone. People are living like it's 1930 again. Most of the world is poor and going broke. Wars have broken out in Africa, Asia and Russia has been eying Poland and the Baltic states again. The Democrats lost the congress in 2010 and the Presidency in 2012 - to a registered independent who advertised himself as "Real Change" as opposed to Obama's "No Change" which was a double entendre describing the poverty of America and the farce of Obama's promised "change" which was no change at all. The Democrats woke up and realized they were saps and suckers. The Independents finally had their day. Gingrich ran for President against him on the right. And four years later, in 2016, the Independents were equally hated as either Obama or Bush was when they left office -perhaps moreso as they experimented with "Federal redistribution" of the citizens to decrease the numbers of those starving. Rahm Emanuel and 12 others from Obama's administration are in Federal prisons and Obama left office more disgraced than Bill Clinton. Obama's pictures from 2012 show a fully grey haired and balder head - he looks like he aged twenty years in four. Poor guy. He got exactly what he wished for and deserved.

I activate the transceiver and I am pulled back into the time cube.

"So how did it go?"

"I need to go back in time again. It's awful. 30 percent unemployment. Millions starving - here in the US. Martial law is constant in the big cities and most of the biggest states. Crime is unprecedented. Murder, rape, theft is beyond anything it has ever been at in US history."

"How is Biden doing?"

"He was in jail alongside Rahm Emanuel for bribery of a US official and espionage. It appears some of his aides were busy selling state secrets to China and although he claimed he didn't know about it, funds were tracked to his bank accounts from the Chinese government."

Cheney smiles.

"I knew that bastard would sell the US out."

Cheney's assistant hands me a cup of hot coffee.

"Thanks."

"I need to go back and visit December 7, 1941 again. I need to go back to Washington DC and meet my previous daughter again. Something she did had to have changed history the last time I visited."

"You think that will work and return us back to the correct timestream?"

"I hope so. It might return ME to the right timestream, in which case I apologize if upon my return you get back a different version of me."

"How will I know?"

"Let's use a random password generator. If I'm me from this timestream- I'll know it upon my return."

Cheney uses his nearby laptop. He looks up.

"The password is Kingmaker."

"Ok. Wish me luck!"

"Good luck. It's been fun working with you."

"You too. If I'm a different me - don't trust me. Passively rescind all my highest clearances and cancel my treasury card. I've met similar but different versions of myself that are rather unsavory in the timestreams."

"Understood. If it's not you I might even send them out again and keep trying till I get the real Tech1 back."

"That will use an enormous amount of energy. You'll probably put the entire East Coast offline."

"Hey, it's probably worth it."