The paint on the rewind button had faded with the oils on Alfred's fingers, and left it just as black as the rest of the button. There'd been an indentation for the arrows, but they were also disappearing with use. The ridges on the ends of the buttons were, doubtlessly, the next in line to go.

The machine was too young for such wear, he knew. What might have been a sign to stop for another man stood as a pillar of frustration. He should have been done long ago, but he had no choice but to rewind, play, pause all over again. There had to be something that he was missing.

The morning it'd happened, he'd found Texas fogged up on his nightstand. That Texas, who could work himself into a lather over too much milk on his cereal, was incensed in itself meant nothing. Any other day, Alfred would wipe the fog off and move on without a thought. But, when the president was to parade through the territory, it brought about a doubling of security even if it didn't bring about any sort of surprise.

That there was a shooting was nearly a sick sort of satisfaction that his caution had been correctly attributed in a time where he'd had too much paranoia surrounding him. It was difficult to claim a victory of any sort in the wake of national tragedy that had all the potential of being communist in origin.

The VCR screeched as it rewound again.

An investigation was opened immediately, and just as quickly closed again as it settled on a nation-hopping peon who'd been in the book depository. It was concluded without answers as the alleged gunman was shot down by another peon who considered himself a patriot for killing the man who'd killed the president.

It was all so… small, so circumstantial. Great men didn't fall to otherwise insignificant people like this, particularly in situations like they were in. Bullets didn't bounce around like rubber, brains didn't simply go missing, files didn't blank for no reason. Even with all the reassurances… It wasn't right.

The answer was somewhere within these few seconds of video tape.

Alfred leaned forward, and squinted at the jerking caused by the hits as if this time it'd say something that it'd never said to him before. He read through reports with more blacked out than left in. Nothing was different, and that was probably the most infuriating part.

Pieces added up as readily as they refused to meet. What could he do besides keep looking until something was satisfactory?

Well, other than buy a new VCR.