The Last Transaction / Scop - Paperback

by Barry N. Malzberg (Author)

THE LAST TRANSACTION

Ex-president William (Wild Bill) Springer is dictating his memoirs. Now 80 years old, he lives in medical seclusion, tended by his two devoted, phlegmatic keepers, and growing more senile by the day. He had been a powerful U.S. Senator, a majority leader, then fell into the role of president when no one else wanted to tackle the 20-year-curse. But that was years ago. Now, having outlived his son and both his wives, having outlived his own history even, Springer is tended by Dr. Goodenough as he spools out his life on a tape recorder. It is his final compulsion, his setting the record straight....his last transaction.

SCOP

Scop thinks he can change history. He is living in 2040, a brutal time. If only he can keep Kennedy from being assassinated in 1963, Scop figures he can transmute his present. So Scop keeps going back in time, trying one plan after another-and failing with predictable consistency. The more often he returns to the Grassy Knoll, the more he seems to reinforce the events he is trying to change. He tries to talk Zapruder out of taking his pictures. He even kidnaps a tourist and returns her to his present. But just as nothing that Scop does makes any difference, so too, nothing in this situation is exactly as it seems.