All that remained of the first president of the United States was a blackened skeleton, a charred ruff shirt, knickers, and the most hideous pair of dentures I'd ever seen. George lay facedown on a pile of papers, which I presumed to be drafts of the U.S. Constitution.

I couldn't say with absolute certainty that she'd killed the first president of America. The thirteen star flag and the logo on the floor didn't help me determine a year, because I didn't study that much, and the Daleks may have messed up history already.

Upon closer examination, I found the papers to be battle maps, not the Constitution. The seal on the floor, in paint, was a rudimentary version of the usual eagle symbol, missing a few arrows, its claws bent the wrong way.

I remembered seeing a drawing of the president's first base of operations, and it looked like a hotel, not a log cabin. My guess: George's summer home.

His face had been too badly destroyed for me to hold up a penny for facial comparison. Still, the Daleks had killed someone suspiciously like the president.

The robot stood motionless before its victim, the lights on its dome flickering. No sound, of course. Nearby, my mutant wife reported more information to Dalek Command.

Eve had deceived me. She told me to sleep over it, and had kinda helped me along, using the distraction to bring the TARDIS here for her death mission.

Riversong stood between two open doors of an armoire. It seemed that the TARDIS could use that chameleon function I read about.

I waved her back inside. "Stay there! It's not safe!"

Riversong nodded, backing up.

I felt like diving back in with the girl, and closing the doors, letting the police or whoever it was drag Eve away to prison, but I was stupid and in love, I guess.

I turned to face the killer. "Dammit, Eve! That was the founding father of our country! He was supposed to be crawling out a whore's window and dying of pneumonia or syphilis. Why couldn't you leave things alone!"

"Your country means nothing to me."

"Well, unlike you, I don't particularly like tyranny and oppression! You've ruined everything!"

"Whores and syphilis." She made a tsk sound. "He sure sounds like a great guy." Eve casually pried a gold ring off the president's dead fingers, staring at it. "What's this?"

"What's what?"

She threw it to me.

I almost dropped it out of disgust, but I caught it before it fell to the floor.

I stared at the compass and sextant skillfully inlaid in the surface of a small jewel, which fit with what I knew about the founding fathers. "It's a Freemasonry ring."

"What's that?"

Before I could answer, Dalek 48's dome exploded.

"Whoa!" My eyes whipped to an open door at the end of the room, where a man who looked like Uncle Fester with glasses held up a contraption built out of a Dalek laser cannon, furiously cranking a lever on the side like a jack in the box.

The enormous paunch, the vest, the frizz of gray hair, it all reminded me strangely of the face on the one hundred dollar bill. I quickly raised my hands in surrender. "Hey! Benjamin Franklin! Don't shoot! I'm unarmed!"

He ignored me, just kept cranking the device, swearing about Redcoats.

I jumped in front of Eve just seconds before Ben fired the cannon.

As I hit the floor and felt my heart stop, my last thought was `again?'

I felt a slight tremble as my woman fell to the floor behind me.

I came to in a jail cell. I figured Ben's major offensive against Dalek 48 had required a lot of cranking and he hadn't been able to crank fast enough to add us to the blackened skeleton collection.

He or someone like him had fitted me with a pair of old fashioned iron handcuffs and some ineffective leg chains. I sat in an old Western style jail resembling a barn. My boots lay buried under a foot of straw.

I checked my restraints, figuring their barbaric design would make for easy escape, but they proved to be sufficient to keep an idiot like me contained. The chains had been nailed to a wooden plaque attached to a stone wall. No easy way to pry them off.

My cuffs, although simple clamps closed with a padlock, had somehow been screwed through with something that it fit around my wrists tight enough to nearly cut off the circulation. I had nothing to pick the lock with, and the nails on the plank resembled railroad spikes. In short, I was screwed.

My bed: A slab on a chain with hay and blankets on it. My cell overlooked a wall. A lantern hung on an iron ring, a fire hazard with all the straw. I had a bucket to pee in, and the rear window overlooked...well, I had never been to D.C., so I had no idea. The buildings across the...dirt road were shops, so they told me nothing, except that there was a high demand for candles and horseshoes. A village of people dressed like pioneers milled about between them. That's all I knew.

It reminded me of Bonanza. I hate Bonanza.

Eve sat in a cell next to me. They'd put something that looked like a nun's habit and clothes on her. Bastards.

Seriously, not a bad look.

Of course she'd been chained up just like me.

I didn't see Riversong anywhere. Maybe she got smart and stayed inside the...time traveling clothes closet.

A half shaved man in a coat and knickerbockers sat guard over my cell, staring at me like I were a goat with three heads.

I waved. "Hi."

He didn't reply.

"Um, can I speak to Benjamin Franklin?"

He snorted. "You trying to kill him too?"

I raised my manacles. "How can I kill anyone with this on?"

"I'm sure you'll find a way, you damnable Redcoat!"

"Then you don't know me very well. I can't fight my way out of a paper bag."

He nodded in the direction of Eve's cell. "Your friend just killed a guard with her legs."

I swallowed. "Well it's good you put us in separate cells. That could have been me!"

He chuckled at that.

With such indefensible actions, I figured it best to throw her under the bus. "Seriously, I would have never gone to the Oval Office to begin with if she hadn't dragged me by the hair."

The man gave me a blank look. "What's an Oval Office?"

"Uh," I stammered. "It's in the White House?"

He looked like he'd never heard of that either.

"The center of the U.S. Government."

He laughed. "Do you think you're in Virginia or something?"

"I'm not in Virginia?"

"No sir."

An awkward silence followed.

"Did...she really kill George Washington?"

He scowled. "What do you think?"

Another awkward silence.

"So where am I?"

"In a jail," he joked.

That's all the information I got.

"See? I didn't even know where I was going. She just drags me over there against my will and kills the president."

"You won't have to worry about her pulling your hair any longer. You'll be at to the gallows by dawn."

"Gallows!" I protested. "I'm an American citizen! I have a constitutional right to to trial by a jury of peers and a state appointed defense attorney!"

I never thought I'd need that bit of information. It seemed I would be using every bit of my high school and college American history education. "A suspect shall be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law!" I pieced together that last bit from what I heard on COPS.

The man stared at me for a long time before saying, "Mister, that's some pretty good bullshit. Where did you say you were from?"

"Missouri."

"Funny, with that accent, I took you for a Bostonian."

"Speaking of which, have they had the Tea Party yet?"

He laughed. "We're having tea now, are we?"

"Um...I heard...about...some guys dressing up like Indians and throwing tea into Boston harbor to protest taxes."

The man's eyes narrowed. "What do you know."

Okay, so not a great idea, I guess. I didn't know the man's political affiliations. Having absolutely no idea what year it was didn't help matters. "Um, not too much more than that. Something about the Sons of Liberty demanding no taxation without representation, I guess."

The guard's eyes darted back and forth. "Shut your trap! The walls have ears!" He gave my wife a sideways glance, indicating, perhaps, that he trusted me now. He leaned close to the bars. "Who do you have running the operation?"

I burst out laughing. "Got me! I don't know. I'm not in charge."

"Then who is?"

For some reason, I thought Washington had been part of it, which wouldn't have worked in my favor, even if I hadn't been completely wrong. "Uh...I dunno...I just heard about it." And then I stumbled over a clever ploy. "...But I think it might have had something to do with Benjamin Franklin."

He paused and stared at me for a long time, then said, "Well, you are chained to the wall. I guess you can't do much to him if he stays outside the bars."

The guard slowly strolled out of the jail.

Something shiny hit me in the head.

I fished through the hay and found the president's Masonic ring.

I stared at Eve in disbelief. "I thought this was in my pocket."

"It was. I stole it from the guard that frisked you."

"The one you killed?" I gawked at her. "How did they not notice you pocketing it?"

Eve smirked. "I didn't use my hands. While I was grabbing the keys, I just flicked it away and...kinda sat on it."

I almost dropped the ring, but I had already done worse than touch certain things. I wiped it off, staring at the inscription. Something about "united we stand." I put it back in my pocket.

"Okay, where's the keys?"

She shrugged. "They took them back. There were a lot of guards."

Eve frowned. "Do you love me?"

I swallowed. Not something I wanted to discuss with a woman who just killed the president. Despite everything, though, I couldn't honestly say I didn't love her. "Y-yes."

"Then why are you trying to get me executed?"

"Baby, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. You've made yourself an enemy of freedom. I don't trust you anymore." I cleared my throat. "But if I get a fair trial, I'll be sure to give you one. Hopefully we'll be able to get it down to a life sentence."

A few minutes later, the dumpy old man came waddling in.

"Mr. Franklin!" I cried.

"And who the hell are you!" he growled.

"An enemy of the crown." It was my best bluff. "Mr. Franklin, it's an honor to actually meet you. The post office, the almanac, that stunt you did with the kite in the thunderstorm, the invention of the eyeglasses, and most importantly, the signing of the Constitution."

The founding father scowled at me. "Are you a spy?"

"Double agent." I thought it a nice bluff. "I tried to stop the assassination."

He frowned, looking like he didn't believe me. "How do you know about the Constitution?"

"Um...I'm a spy?" I paused. "Did you not write it yet?"

He slowly shook his head.

"I hope you do. It's really important."

The guy still looked uneasy.

"I'm a Freemason," I lied. "In fact, when I saw the woman in the next cell killing him, I took the ring so it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands." And I held it out to him. "Please, give it back to the brotherhood."

His features became more drawn. "I've never seen you at any of the meetings."

"I'm with the Missouri chapter." I threw the ring to him.

Bad shot. He ended up picking it up from the ground. "When I meant I never saw you at any of the meetings, I meant the national ones, too."

"Couldn't make it. Last year...my horse got sick. It's always something."

It seemed my excuse actually worked.

"I would like a state appointed legal representative, as I can't afford my own, a jury of peers, and to not be counted guilty of this most heinous crime without a fair trial."

The man stared at me with absolute surprise for a few minutes, then took out a little book, scribbling something down with a little lump of graphite.

"Remarkable!" he laughed. "Truly remarkable! It's like you read my thoughts! Or Jefferson's! How long have you been in law school?"

"I...awhile." I took a deep breath. "Is there any way we can at least change this hanging sentence to life without parole or something? I find the punishment...cruel and unusual, especially considering the fact I didn't even touch the president...or conspire to his death."

He steepled his fingers together. Instead of answering my question, he said, "I've heard you have a unique idea on how to tell the British we're fed up with their unreasonable tax levies."

I paused. "What year is it?"

"1772. Why?"

"Do you believe in time travel?"

He frowned at my space suit. "I've seen enough things to make me wonder about such things, or beings beyond the stars. Like the Rolling Ironsides, for example. Now, back to that...what did you call it? Tea...party?"

I described the old story they taught me in grade school. It took him awhile for him to process it. I hadn't given him that much information because I couldn't remember it all.

At last, the man gave me a broad one hundred dollar smile. "Double agent, I'm willing to give you a reprieve on behalf of the Order, on one condition. You must go to Boston Harbor and carry out this plan at once."

Oh no.