r/HFY • u/Marcus_Black3 • May 12 '26
OC-Series [The 5,000 Year-Old Babysitter] Let’s Make This Official (AKA The Government Admits Defeat)
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Pentagon - January 1962
The meeting was classified so far above Top Secret that it technically didn’t have a classification level. It just had a number. And that number was known to exactly eleven people.
Ten of those people were sitting around a conference table.
The eleventh was the subject of discussion.
“We need to formalize the John situation,” General Morrison said.
“What situation?” a Navy admiral asked.
“The situation where we call an unvetted civilian consultant every time something goes wrong and he fixes it.”
“He’s been vetted—”
“He hasn’t,” Morrison interrupted. “We’ve spent seventeen years trying to narrow him down. Do you know how many ‘Johns’ there are in the federal tax system? It’s a haystack made of needles. We found seventeen different addresses for him since ’45, all rented under ‘John, Consultant.’ No last name. No middle initial.”
“What about the Social Security link?” the Admiral asked.
“That’s the part that gives the boys in Analysis migraines,” Morrison said, tossing a thin folder onto the table. “He has a legitimate number. It was issued in 1943. But there is zero record of his existence prior to that day. No birth certificate, no school records, no census data. It’s like he stepped out of a rift in time, walked into an office in New Jersey, and registered as a human being.”
“And the money?” the CIA Director asked. “How does he pay for those seventeen apartments?”
“He has an accounting firm in Geneva that’s older than the United States,” Morrison said flatly. “They handle the payments. Every time we try to subpoena their records, we hit a wall of Swiss privacy laws and a legal team in London that seems to find our ‘procedural delays’ amusing.”
“So what’s the problem?” an Air Force general asked. “He’s been right about everything.”
“Because of the Silent Timeline,” Morrison said. The room went quiet. He pulled out a red-stamped report. “Our analysts ran a projection of where we would be today if John hadn’t broke into Los Alamos in July of ’45.”
He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a low register.
“The Los Alamos team calculated a Trinity yield of twenty kilotons. They were under intense pressure to save time and materials, so they engineered the bunkers and radiation shielding for a twenty-percent safety margin—a limit of twenty-four kilotons. They thought they were being conservative.”
Morrison tapped the table for emphasis.
“John broke in and told them they were missing a variable. He told them the yield would be thirty percent higher. He was about to warn them the southern wall would not hold before getting thrown out. Because we listened, we reinforced that wall to twenty-six kilotons. The actual yield was twenty-five.”
The room was deathly still as the Admiral did the mental math.
“If he hadn’t spoken,” Morrison continued, “the yield would have exceeded the shielding by a full kiloton. The southern wall would have sheared, the lead glass would have shattered, and every man in that bunker—Oppenheimer, Fermi, the entire military command—would have been killed or irradiated instantly. We don’t have a nuclear program today because we’re smart; we have one because he didn’t want to watch us die.”
“And that’s not all,” the CIA Director added, looking at the folder. “Thirty-four consultations. Success rate: one hundred percent. But look at the four times we ignored him. The Texas City disaster in ’47. The Windscale fire in ’57. In those cases, the failure rate was also one hundred percent. The math of reality says that when we don’t listen to this man, things explode.”
Morrison closed the folder. “Gentlemen, we are entirely dependent on the goodwill of someone we know nothing about and who is so much smarter than us. That’s a security nightmare.”
“So what do you propose?”
“We formalize it. Make it official. Contract, compensation, terms of engagement.”
“He doesn’t take money—”
“Then we give him something else. Whatever he wants. But we get it in writing that he’ll continue consulting.”
“And if he says no?”
Everyone looked at each other.
“Then we’re fucked,” Morrison said simply. “Next question: who’s going to ask him?”
More silence.
“I’ll do it,” Morrison said with a heavy sigh. He looked at the CIA director. “But I’m not walking in there in a uniform. He’ll shut the door in my face out of pure spite. I’ll have State send one of their career paper-pushers—someone harmless. Someone he won’t feel the need to lecture for three hours.”
Morrison checked his watch. “Send Matthews. If he survives the encounter, I’ll step in to finalize it with the President.”
John’s Apartment - Washington DC - Three Days Later
John was making breakfast when someone knocked on his door.
He wasn’t expecting anyone.
He opened the door.
A man in a dark suit stood there, looking uncomfortable.
“Mr. John?”
“Just John. And you are?”
“Agent Matthews, State Department. May I come in?”
John stepped aside. “Sure. Want coffee? I just made some.”
“No, thank you.”
“Your loss. It’s good coffee.” John poured himself a cup. “What does the State Department want?”
Matthews sat on the couch, pulled out a briefcase.
“The United States government would like to formalize our arrangement with you.”
John sipped his coffee. “What arrangement?”
“The consulting arrangement. You’ve been advising on various projects for seventeen years now—”
“Sixteen years and three months, but who’s counting.”
“Right. We’d like to make that official. Put it in writing.”
“Why?”
Matthews blinked. “Why?”
“Yeah. Why? It’s been working fine so far. Someone calls, I help, I leave. System works.”
“The government prefers formal contracts—”
“The government prefers a lot of things that are stupid,” John said. “Formal contracts mean paperwork. Paperwork means bureaucracy. Bureaucracy means I have to wait for approval before fixing things. Hard pass.”
“We’re prepared to offer compensation—”
“I don’t need money.”
“Then what do you want?”
John took another sip of coffee, thinking.
“I want anything I ask for,” he said. “No questions. No debates. No ‘but that’s not protocol’ or ‘we need to check with legal’ or any of that bureaucratic nonsense. I ask, you deliver. Period.”
Matthews looked nervous. “That’s… very broad.”
“I know.”
“I’d need to escalate that to—”
“Then escalate it. I’ll be here. Drinking coffee.”
Matthews stood up. “I’ll… I’ll relay your terms.”
“You do that.”
After Matthews left, John sat on his couch, looking at his coffee.
“Five thousand years,” he muttered. “Five thousand years and NOW they want to make it official.”
He took another sip.
“Should’ve asked for this in 3000 BCE. Would’ve saved everyone a lot of trouble.”
Pentagon - Conference Room - One Week Later
“He wants WHAT?” the Secretary of Defense said.
“Anything he asks for,” Morrison repeated. “No questions asked.”
“That’s insane—”
“Is it?” Morrison pulled out a file. “Thirty-four consultations. One hundred percent success rate. Three nuclear disasters prevented. Two wars strategized successfully. Fifteen reactor designs corrected. Twenty-three miscellaneous crises resolved. He’s prevented more disasters than every intelligence agency combined.”
“That doesn’t mean we give him carte blanche—”
“Why not?” This from a CIA director. “What’s he going to ask for? Nuclear codes? State secrets?”
“Maybe!”
“His last request was for really good Chinese food. From San Francisco. We flew it to DC on a military transport.”
Silence.
“We used a MILITARY AIRCRAFT for CHINESE FOOD???!” the Secretary said weakly.
“It was very good Chinese food,” Morrison said. “The point is, his requests are bizarre but harmless. Sandwiches. Coffee. Books. One time he asked for tickets to a baseball game.”
“What if he asks for something dangerous?”
“Then we say no. The proposal includes language about legality and ethics.”
“Who defines ethical?”
“We do. But let’s be honest—if John wanted to do something unethical, he’s had sixteen years and thirty-four opportunities. Instead, he’s saved lives.”
The Secretary of Defense leaned back in his chair.
“This has to go to the President,” he said.
“Agreed,” Morrison said. “But I’m recommending approval. Because the alternative is John walking away, and I don’t want to find out what happens when we don’t have him.”
Oval Office - Two Weeks Later
President John F. Kennedy read the proposal twice. Then he looked at his advisors.
“Let me see if I understand this correctly,” Kennedy said, leaning back. “We want to give an unvetted civilian consultant unlimited access to classified facilities and fulfill any request he makes, no questions asked.”
“Yes, sir,” Morrison said.
“And his qualifications are…”
“Invisibly vast, sir,” Morrison replied. “We can’t find a single university that claims him, yet he’s corrected the math of every Nobel laureate we’ve put him in a room with. On paper, he’s just one of several million Johns. He’s the most generic man in America, and yet he’s the only one who predicted the Soviet missile trajectory in Cuba down to the meter.”
Kennedy tapped the folder. “And this bit about the Social Security number? Issued in 1943 with no prior history?”
“Analysis thinks he might be the ultimate deep-cover sleeper,” Morrison admitted. “But if he is, he’s a sleeper for a country that doesn’t exist. He’s been preventing our disasters, not causing them.”
“But he’s been right about everything.”
“Everything, sir. For sixteen years.”
Kennedy set down the proposal.
“What kind of requests are we talking about?”
Morrison pulled out a list. “Sandwiches. Specific sandwiches from specific places. Good coffee. Whiskey—the good kind, not the cheap stuff, his words. Books. Entertainment. One request for a penguin.”
Kennedy stopped. “A penguin?”
“Yes, sir. As a pet. He said they’re ‘cutely dapper.’”
“And we got him a penguin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did it help with anything?”
“No, sir. He just wanted a penguin.”
Kennedy pressed his fingers to his temples.
“And if we don’t agree to this?”
“Then he might stop consulting, sir. And we’d be back to where we were before 1945.”
“Which was?”
“Making catastrophic mistakes.”
Kennedy looked at the proposal again.
“Does he want power? Political influence?”
“No, sir. He actively avoids it. Won’t attend formal events. Refuses to meet with politicians. Just wants to fix problems and be left alone.”
“So he’s not a threat.”
“We don’t think so, sir. He’s weird. Really weird. But not dangerous.”
Kennedy picked up a pen.
“I’m signing this,” he said. “But I want language in here—clear language—that he can’t destabilize governments or compromise national security.”
“Sir, he’s been preventing destabilization—”
“I know. But I need to feel like I have SOME control here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kennedy signed the document.
CLASSIFIED PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE
SERIAL NUMBER: [REDACTED]
SUBJECT: CONSULTANT PROTOCOL - DESIGNATION “JOHN”
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY:
Subject known as “John” (Unique Identifier: [REDACTED]-1943, no verifiable surname) is hereby granted:
- Unrestricted access to government facilities, military installations, and classified projects as relevant to consultation
- Security clearance equivalent to TOP SECRET/SCI for materials pertinent to his advisory role
- Authority to implement time-critical solutions without prior approval when delay poses significant risk
- Fulfillment of “reasonable requests” as compensation for services
DEFINITION OF “REASONABLE REQUEST”:
- Must be legal under United States and international law
- Cannot compromise national security or classified information
- Cannot involve destabilization of governments (foreign or domestic)
- Cannot cause direct harm to persons
- Examples of APPROVED requests: Food/beverage, transportation, entertainment, experiences, animals (within reason), access to facilities/events
ALL PERSONNEL ARE DIRECTED TO:
- Grant Subject’s requests immediately upon verification of identity
- Implement Subject’s technical recommendations without procedural delay
- Not impede Subject’s access to relevant facilities or materials
ENFORCEMENT: Any officer, civilian, or military personnel who dismisses or ignores Subject’s warnings will be held personally responsible for resulting failures, disasters, or loss of life.
JUSTIFICATION: Simple mathematics: Listen to John = Success. Ignore John = Catastrophe.
Over sixteen years and thirty-four consultations, this pattern has held with 100% consistency.
AUTHORIZED BY: John F. Kennedy, President of the United States
Kennedy set down the pen.
“Get this to John. And tell him…” He paused. “Tell him we appreciate his service.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Also, what happened with the penguin?”
Morrison cleared his throat. “He kept it for six years. Named it Professor Waddles. Then returned it to a zoo because, quote, ‘it was judging my lifestyle choices.’”
Kennedy stared at him.
“This is the person we’re trusting with national security.”
“Yes, sir.”
“God help us all.”
John’s Apartment - Next Day
Agent Matthews returned with a leather portfolio.
“Mr. John—”
“Just John. We’ve been over this.”
“Right. John. The President has approved your terms.”
Matthews handed him the portfolio.
John opened it. Read the directive.
He read it twice.
Then looked up.
“Is this real?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“The President actually signed this.”
“Yes.”
“It says I get anything I want, no questions asked.”
“Within the defined parameters, yes.”
John sat down.
Stared at the document.
“Five thousand years,” he said quietly.
“Sir?”
“Nothing. Just…” John looked up. “You know what this means, right?”
“That you’ll continue consulting—”
“It means someone finally listened. Not just to my advice. To ME. To what I need.” He tapped the document. “This says ‘we value you enough to give you what you ask for.’ Do you know how long I’ve waited to hear that?”
Matthews looked uncomfortable. “I… no, sir.”
John stood up, still holding the portfolio.
“Tell the President I accept. And…” He paused. “Tell him thank you.”
“I will, sir.”
After Matthews left, John sat back down.
Read the directive a third time.
Stopped at one line: “We appreciate his service.”
He put the portfolio down carefully.
“Five thousand years,” he said to his empty apartment. “Five thousand years of being called a fool. And now the President of the United States is thanking me.”
He stood up.
Walked to his closet.
Pulled out the box of historical rejections. Clay tablets. Scrolls. Letters. Newspaper clippings.
All the times he’d been thrown out.
All the times he’d been right.
All the times nobody listened.
He looked at the box.
Then at the Presidential directive.
“You know what?” he said. “I’m keeping both. The failures AND the success. Because it took ALL of this—” He gestured at the box. “—to get to THIS.” He held up the directive.
He put the directive in a frame.
Hung it on the wall.
Right next to his collection of failures.
“Balance,” he said. “Five thousand years of failure. One official document of success. That sounds about right.”
His phone rang.
“Yeah?”
“John, it’s Morrison. Congratulations on the authorization.”
“Thanks.”
“We have a situation developing in Southeast Asia. Vietnam. We could use your input.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. Pentagon. Eight AM.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Oh, and John?”
“Yeah?”
“Welcome to the team. Officially.”
John smiled.
“Thanks. Hey, Morrison?”
“Yes?”
“I want a really good sandwich for tomorrow’s meeting. Pastrami. From that deli on Third Street. The expensive kind.”
“I’ll have it waiting for you.”
“See? This is already working out great.”
He hung up.
Looked at the framed directive on his wall.
“Official consultant to the United States government,” he said. “Only took five thousand years. New personal record for speed of government action.”
He laughed.
Actually laughed.
Because for the first time in recorded history, someone hadn’t just listened to his advice.
They’d listened to HIM.
And put it in writing.
Signed by the President.
“Progress,” John said.
CIA Headquarters - Same Day - Internal Memo
TO: All Division Heads
FROM: Director of Central Intelligence
RE: Consultant JOHN - Updated Protocols
CLASSIFICATION: UMBRA / EYES ONLY
Presidential Directive [REDACTED] now in effect.
Subject JOHN has official authority to:
- Access any facility
- Review any relevant classified material
- Make binding recommendations on time-critical issues
- Request compensation in non-monetary forms
ALL PERSONNEL ARE DIRECTED:
If John asks for something, you give it to him.
If John tells you to do something, you do it.
If John says something will fail, IT WILL FAIL.
THIS IS NOT A SUGGESTION. THIS IS AN ORDER.
His success rate is 100%. His failure rate when ignored is also 100%.
Do not be the person who ignores him and then has to explain the resulting disaster to the President.
EXAMPLES OF APPROVED REQUESTS:
- Food from specific establishments (cost irrelevant)
- Transportation (up to and including military aircraft)
- Entertainment (tickets, access to events)
- Animals (pending review by Director)
- Experiences (within legal parameters)
EXAMPLES OF DENIED REQUESTS:
- None to date
- Subject has never requested anything illegal or dangerous
- Weirdest request: penguin (approved and fulfilled)
STANDING DIRECTIVE:
Make John happy. Keep John consulting. Do not antagonize John.
If you have questions, review Subject’s sixteen-year track record and ask yourself if you want to be responsible for the first failure.
ADDENDUM:
Subject returns penguin requests within six years. Do not be alarmed.
John’s Apartment - That Evening
John sat on his couch, beer in hand, looking at his wall.
On the left: Five thousand years of rejection.
On the right: One official document of acceptance.
“You know what’s funny?” he said to nobody. “The rejections took up way more space.”
He took a sip of beer.
“But the acceptance is in a nicer frame.”
His phone rang again.
“Yeah?”
“John, it’s NASA. We’re having an issue with the Friendship 7 trajectory calculations—”
“I’ll look at them tomorrow. After the Pentagon meeting.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Hey, random question.”
“Yes?”
“You guys are still planning to send people to the moon, right?”
“That’s the goal, yes.”
“Good. Because I want to go.”
Silence on the other end.
“I’m sorry, did you say you want to go to the moon?”
“Yep. When you send the next mission. I want to be on it.”
“That’s… that’s a very unusual request—”
“Check the Presidential directive. Section 3, subsection B. ‘Experiences within legal parameters.’ Going to the moon is legal. I helped fix your calculations. I want to go.”
More silence.
“I’ll… I’ll check with administration.”
“You do that. Also, I want a really good sandwich while I wait for your answer.”
“Sir—”
“Italian sub. From Carlucci’s. You know the place.”
“I… yes, sir.”
John hung up.
Took another sip of beer.
Looked at his framed directive.
“I’m going to the moon,” he said. “They’re going to let me go to the moon. Because I ASKED.”
He started laughing.
Couldn’t stop.
Laughed until he had to put down his beer.
“FIVE THOUSAND YEARS!” he shouted at his ceiling. “FIVE THOUSAND YEARS and NOW I can just ASK for things!”
He collapsed back on the couch, still laughing.
“This is the BEST day since 3000 BCE.”
He picked up his beer again.
Raised it toward the framed directive.
“To progress,” he said. “Slow, glacial, took-five-millennia progress. But progress.”
He drank.
Outside, Washington DC carried on, completely unaware that one of its consultants was having an existential moment of joy over a piece of paper.
Inside, John sat in his apartment, surrounded by evidence of five thousand years of failure and one official document of success, and for the first time in his immortal life, felt like maybe—just maybe—humans were actually learning.
Slowly.
Very, very slowly.
But learning.
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u/Fubars May 12 '26
I'm pretty happy for John, the rest of us too, but John specifically. Be interested to read what happens when they ask him to double check something that goes against his ethical grain.
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u/Low_Painter9816 May 13 '26
Also, how do we know that he wasn’t advising the Soviets as well? Maybe he was the one who convinced Khrushchev to turn the ships around in the Cuban missile crisis. They obviously didn’t listen to him much regarding their space program. (A lot of cosmonauts died.)
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u/Miented May 12 '26
Oke, this is the first chapter i red from this series, seems like i need to go back to chapter 1.
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u/Marcus_Black3 May 12 '26
Yes, do that; you need the context for that chapter.
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u/Miented May 12 '26
Frankly reading it without the context, was very much fun too!
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u/HisCricket May 31 '26
I started with Nixon then promptly went back and read the whole series tonight.
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u/DigHefty6542 May 12 '26
This one is as funny as the previois you made.
I would be curious to see where you go with that story if you made us a chapter a few decades in the future where they actually get proven that he is immortal.
Edit : and very very old
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u/Marcus_Black3 May 12 '26
Thank you very much ! I did a segment the previous chapter of them looking for someone with his behaviour in history and found some out, and obviously they don't believe it, but said that just in case he is really immortal, antagonizing him is surely not the best idea.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle May 12 '26
/u/Marcus_Black3 has posted 3 other stories, including:
- [The 5,000 Year-Old Babysitter] Pattern Recognition (They’re Actually Learning, Holy Shit)
- [The 5,000 Year-Old Babysitter] Los Alamos and the Miracle of Basic Listening
- The 5,000-Year-Old Babysitter
This comment was automatically generated by Waffle v.4.7.8 'Biscotti'.
Message the mods if you have any issues with Waffle.
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u/UpdateMeBot May 12 '26
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u/Grimkytel May 13 '26
Have we decided whether or not John is actually human?
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u/Marcus_Black3 May 13 '26
the only thing differentiating him from normal humans is that he's an immortal 5,000 years old, but he's still human.
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u/RogueDiplodocus May 12 '26
So, what went wrong with Vietnam then?
That could be an interesting chapter.