[tshiggins]

Stupid teacher. Doesn't know nothin' 'bout nothin', Red thought sullenly, as he trudged through the Boston slush. He hated this place. He hated this city. He wanted to go home, 'cept that home wasn't there, no more.

"Red! Hey, Red!"

The sullen boy stopped, as Thomas came running up. The bigger boy was really strong, but he didn't move as fast as Red.

The strength came in handy, though. A white boy had called Thomas, "Uncle" one time. He'd missed school for the better part of a month, and Thomas had got expelled for the rest of the year. He and Red and been friends, ever since, though.

"Hey! What did that old bag have to say?"

Red scowled.

"She said I had to take a note to my mama. It says I ain't been studying, and I been makin' trouble, and she says my aunt needs to come see her."

"You gonna take it to yo' aunt?"

"Hell, no! She got enough to do, without talkin' to no cracker-jack school teacher who don't even talk English right! Ain't nobody can understand none of these white folks, up here in Roxbury."

Thomas' laugh ended abruptly, when his brains exploded out of the back of his skull. Red stared for what seemed forever but must've been only a second because he started to run just as the other boy's body started to crumple and the crack of the gunshot echoed down the street.

A brick exploded as he dodged down an alley. Jumped a fence to see the white pickup truck wheel around the corner, wheels screeching. Dodged through the vacant lot as a bee that wasn't a bee buzzed past his ear. Another alley and through the door of ol' man Greavey's grocery, shouts behind him. Another alley. Another lot. Through the door of his aunt's home.

Two white men in dark suits in his aunt's living room, jumping to their feet as he burst through the door.

Red's knees weak. He was gonna die. Right here, right now. Just like his daddy.

"Relax, boy. We aren't here to hurt you, or anybody else."

"Bull! You with them!"

"Them? Them who?"

Screeching tires outside. Broken glass as the front window exploded and one of the men in the dark suit went down, screaming, a red spot high on his shirt growing larger. Aunt Ella jumping on Red, pulling him to the floor, "Get down! Get down!" The other white man with a revolver in his hand (Where did he get that?) firing out the shattered window. The sound of tires screeching away. Shouts, the white man on the floor yelling, "Call it in! Call it in! I'm okay!"

More white men in black suits. Police, too. You and your family can't stay here, Mrs. Collins. Where will we go? Where will we go? Man in Baltimore. Attorney. Agreed to give you a safe place.

Train ride for a long, long day that passes in a haze. Not really thinking too good. Not really real. White men in black suits protecting them.

Protecting him.

The house in Baltimore was the nicest he'd ever seen. The furniture was new and comfortable. The rugs were clean and bright and not at all frayed. Everything smelled fresh and new.

Red looked around. Tried to be calm. Tried to look like he didn't care.

"Who lives here?"

"I do."

Red turned around, and blinked in shock at the face of the young black man in the white shirt and dark slacks, who looked as if he were trying to hold back laughter at something funny.

"Aw, there ain't no way."

"There is. This is my house. I own this place, and you aren't my only guests."

Voice deep and resonant. It would sing a good hymn. The words, though. They were crisp, no accent. A black man's voice speaking a white man's words. Not really real.

"How did you get a place like this? Did you kill somebody?"

"No, young man. I don't kill people. I'm an attorney, and I get paid good money to do a good job."

Red stood there and blinked like a rube, speechless for the first time in as long as he could remember. The attorney-man stuck out his hand.

"My name is Thurgood Marshall. I doubt your mama named you 'Red', though."

"No. Uh, no sir. I'm Malcolm. Malcolm Little."

************************************************** *****

Ralph Weston sat quietly in the comfortable chair, trying not to stare around the room, as the president of the United States sat across the desk from him, leafing through the report.

"So, all the names on the left side of the list were either colored boys in their teens, or young men of color with good educations and strong family backgrounds?"

"Yes, sir, Mr. President. Also, all of those people in the corresponding list to the right --at least those we've been able to find, alive -- have links to the Ku Klux Klan or other white defense groups, mostly in the south."

"Are there any connections between these boys on the left?"

"No, sir. Not that we've been able to discover and, honestly, it would've been strange had we found any. They ranged in age from 11 years old to nearly 30, and come from all sorts of backgrounds. The only things they have in common is the color of their skin, and the fact that some of them come from families active in civil rights agitation. However, none of them have any history of violence, save for that boy, Little. That's all schoolyard stuff, though."

"You said, "those we've been able to find, alive."

"Yes, Mr. President. Some of the names on the right have dropped out of sight. Most of them are dead, though. Murdered, we think, by the same individual in the same way. Gunshot wounds from one or two .45 caliber autoloading pistols, most likely some variation of the M1911A1."

"How did he find them, Mr. Weston? How did he know to look for these evil men?"

"I wish I could tell you that, sir. I've run across his work, once or twice in the past. Many of his victims have no record of criminal activity, but subsequent investigations almost always turn up evidence of brutal or depraved activities. Opium smuggling. Human trafficking. Worse things. And we have no idea how he finds them."

"Yet, nonetheless, he does."

"Yes, Mr. President. He does. However, there's another question -- something I didn't see, right away."

"Which is?"

"Why did his victims pick these particular coloreds? Mr. Marshall, maybe, makes sense. So does that Reverend King, down in Atlanta. But this boy, Little, is only 14 years, old, and that dead kid, Evers, was only 17, and they lived hundreds of miles, apart."

"I think they're students of history, Mr. Weston, or they received the names from someone who is such a student."

"Hist..? Oh. My God. You think someone on the Future Earth is sending them these names? The names of young colored men who may do something, in the future -- what would be our future?"

"Mr. Friedman thinks that, and I tend to agree. I think I'll have him contact my... colleague, in that Earth's Oval Office. Perhaps some of his people can find out who broadcast these names to our Klan."