Sky Ghost by Mack Maloney

psychologists: Freud, Jung, Skinner. And it was in Jung that he found his first clue as to the difference between here and there. Nothing in Jung’s writings mentioned the subject of Coincidences. This was very strange. In Hunter’s place, Jung had spent much time pondering the meaning of coincidences. He’d coined the term “synchronicity,” or “meaningful coincidences” and brought to the fore, at least for discussion, the notion that there might be a spiritual connection to even the smallest coincidental event.
    But here, in this place, there was none of that, in Jung or anywhere else. For Hunter, the omission was as glaring as if he’d read E=MC3 or that Scrooge was a sweetheart. What is a world without coincidence? What are the ramifications of that? In all his reading and rereadings, he could not come up with a suitable answer.
    He went on to read basic math, basic English, and basic religion books. Everything matched up. One and one still made two; subjects came before verbs, and some people thought the world was created in seven days. Nothing was different.
    Then he started reading the history books.
    And that’s where it got strange.
    For the most part, the early history of this place was the same as his, but there were some unusual exceptions. The first thing he discovered was the Athenians had beaten the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War, not the other way around. And then the Battle of Chaeronea was fought in 332 BC, not 338. And that Julius Caesar had conquered England the first time the Romans invaded, not the fifth. And the First Crusade had failed to capture Jerusalem.
    The American Revolution played out as he remembered it but there was no War of 1812. The U.S. Civil War lasted only two years, with the North soundly defeating the South. A second war erupted with Mexico in 1886. There was a Spanish-American War, but most of the fighting had been done in South America. And then, in 1901, the U.S. fought a bizarre war against Italy.
    World War I went off just as he recalled it, as did the Great Depression. Then on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. World War II was on.
    But then the real twists began. First of all, Germany attacked France two months after defeating Poland, not six. There was no Phony War then. The British Army was surrounded at Dunkirk—and there it was destroyed. Next, the Spanish allowed the Germans to change the railroad gauge throughout their country and soon the Germans rolled through and captured Gibraltar. This essentially sealed off the Mediterranean, making it a German lake. Germany invaded England next and was successful. They won in North Africa and took over the Middle East oil reserves too. Then Germany attacked and defeated Russia in eight short weeks. Throughout all this, Japan stayed neutral, having no expansionist plans of its own. Instead they fed both Germany and America technology and became very wealthy in the bargain.
    It became clear that in this world, the Germans didn’t make any of the classic blunders that had sealed their fate in the version of World War II that Hunter knew. They were a formidable enemy, not a stumbling, bumbling giant and had made great strides on the battlefield long before America could do anything about it. By the end of 1943, Germany held all of Europe. By the end of 1944, they held all of the Middle East, all of Africa, and huge chunks of Asia and the Subcontinent.
    Then, in April of 1945, Hitler died, not by a bullet in the mouth, but of a simple heart attack. Admiral Canaris took over the Third Reich and after that, Germany became “respectable.” Any Jews not incinerated were freed. Wartime restrictions were eased. The SS was eliminated, as was the Gestapo. Neutral countries began trading with the vast German Empire.
    And the war calmed down.
    For 10 years.
    Then came something called the Uprising of Kent. This was essentially a revolt in German-controlled England, which after three years of guerrilla fighting and